More than a decade ago DocBook became the standard for the few brave souls forging ahead in XML publications. DocBook offered a cheaper and more efficient way to publish to multiple formats. Single-sourcing became a reality for hardware and software companies. However, in recent years, many in technical documentation publications have proclaimed DITA as the standard for XML documentation. DITA offered architecture in which to create and publish structured content.

Are these two seemingly rival standards really that different? This article from Teresa Mulvihill answers this question with comparative examples, and allows you, the audience, to decide for yourselves.

When it comes to documentation projects, primarily technical, medical, and scientific, using XML is a no-brainer. The heavy thinking comes when deciding which flavor of XML to use: DocBook or DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture). I have been a steadfast supporter of DocBook for many years. I'd tried my hand at DITA and gave it up as a fad; lots of bells and whistles, but too complicated to integrate. And couldn't DocBook do everything DITA promised anyway?

So when Allette Systems contacted me to speak on XML standards in Sydney Australia, I jumped at the chance to prove to the documentation world just how wonderful DocBook is and how DITA falls short. Fortunately, my in-depth research opened my eyes to the benefits and limitations of both.

On the one hand, DocBook has the advantage of age; it's stable, easy to set up, and created specifically for technical documentation publications. On the other hand, DITA has the advantage of youth; it's innovative, complete with its own architecture, and created for documentation outside the book. DocBook was hatched in 1991 by HAL computer Systems and O'Reilly and Associates (now O'Reilly Media). In 1998, Oasis gave DocBook its own technical community. A year later, DITA began evolving from cross-department teams within IBM. Its Oasis technical community was established in 2004.

The following table gives you a side-by-side comparison of the characteristics of these two standards based on my research and experimentation with them.

DocBook is well supported, easy to integrate, and tailored to technical documentation needs. DITA has a highly technical, innovative community, can (with development) publish to all online formats, and comes with its own architecture (content management).

So how do you decide? Well, the good news is DocBook and DITA are quite similar in basic elemental parts and XML tags. For example, DocBook is built on sections, which can be compared to DITA’s topics, as shown in the figure below provided by Flatirons Solutions.

Why is this good news? Because smaller companies, or those new to XML, can start with DocBook and graduate to DITA when and if needed.

Already, some online communities such as Oasis Open Document and private companies such as Flatirons Solutions are facilitating compatibility between these two standards.

Chief Technology Officer at Flatirons, Eric Severson, explains why: "Many of our clients have standardized on DocBook but are interested in transitioning to DITA. Others have adopted one of these standards but have business partners who have standardized on the other. This creates an environment where both standards often need to co-exist and be interoperable with each other. Our Document Interoperability Framework leverages the common denominator between DocBook and DITA - including an alignment of DITA topics and DocBook sections - to provide this interoperability."

But if you are starting from scratch, the table below may help you decided which standard is right for you and your company by weighing what you have today against what you want in the future.

So before taking up arms in the DocBook/DITA wars, remember there is no need to choose a side but rather choose a flavor. DocBook and DITA are not rivals but brothers in the same XML family. Small to medium companies, and even those larger ones new to XML, can get their feet wet with DocBook and then plunge into DITA when the time is right.

DCLNews Editorial
April 2008