The debate between DocBook and DITA heated up shortly after DITA became an OASIS standard. Until then, there had been some reluctance by companies, with significant investment costs and potential risk, to adopt a markup language that was not in the public domain. Once DITA became a standard, the standards war started in earnest.

Not that the architects of either standard is claiming standard supremacy. Norman Walsh, the main man behind DocBook, admits that while Docbook can do everything that DITA can do, there are some things that DocBook is much better suited for, and things that DocBook could be turned into a pretzel to do, but is more suited to DITA. Michael Priestley, the main man behind DITA, has similar things to say about DITA: it can do everything that DocBook can, but in some cases, DocBook would do the trick quite neatly.

Teresa Mulvihill has strong opinions in the XML debate, as well. In her decade of creating XML documentation for clients around the world, she has had to make the critical choice of XML standard to ensure that the documentation is created in a way that will benefit the organization in the best way, in the long run. Mulvihill offers a complimentary documentation assessment for companies considering a document conversion to XML.

For those wanting to understand more about the standards and the differences between them, Mulvihill’s presentation at DocTrain West on DocBook vs. DITA: Will The Real Standard Please Stand Up? will be an illuminating session.