What are the key principles of the DITA architecture?

Forum topic: Submitted by carolgeyer on Mon, 2007-09-17 18:42.

Topic orientation: Information covering one subject with a specific intent
Topic granularity: Discrete, self-contained units accessed independently
Topic sets: Deliverables assembled from a pool of available topics
Strong typing: Required structures with well-defined semantics for each kind of information — such as a Task with steps
Specialization: Extensibility by defining a new type as a special case of an existing type — API Reference from Reference
Type hierarchy: A single generic Topic type from which all other types are specialized and to which all types can fall back
Reuse: Content reused through topic and content references; design and processing reused through specialization