Trinity, One Two Three

People are innately drawn to things in threes; to objects in triplicate. There's the classic Christian trinity, where God is divided up neatly into three parts: the father, the son, and the holy spirit. But there are many other trinities:

• mind, body and soul
• thinking, feeling and acting
• work/life/play balance
• the division of pregnancy into three trimesters
• animal, vegetable and mineral
• Christians, Muslims and Jews
• protons, neutrons and electrons
• the First, Second and Third Worlds
• sex, politics and religion
• family, friends and co-workers

In addition, Starbucks Coffee developed the idea of "the third place" outside of home and work, where one could simply relax while drinking $6 lattes. Clearly, people are attracted to threesomes, but why?

It could be that three represents a careful, comforting and symbiotic balance. While it's true that just two things can "balance" each other (picture two equal riders on a see-saw), extending the number to three seems to add that extra element of desired symmetry. Each of three balances out each other in a psychologically pleasing way.

DITA, an XML markup language that is revolutionizing how content is stored, created and managed, also uses a trinity. In DITA, all content is stored as individual, modular topics. There are three basic DITA topic types in which all content can be classified: concepts, tasks, and references.

1. A concept topic describes what something is or why you would perform a task. It gives the idea behind something; the background information that the reader needs to know.
2. A task topic gives detailed, step-by-step procedures for a specific action. It can include pre-requisites and expected results. It is one of the most common topic types.
3. A reference topic contains technical material, specifications, lookups and other detailed information, often in a table form. Examples include command references, allowed values, lists and catalogues.

Now, what's very important to remember is that you should never mix the content of each of the parts in this holy trinity together, for you will surely burn in content management hell.

For example:

1. In a task, do not include a detailed explanation of why you would perform this task. Maintain this background information in a concept, then, if necessary, link it to the task topic.
2. In a concept, do not include procedural steps. Keep these steps in a task topic.
3. If there are many possible values to choose from in a task, do not include them in the task, but in a reference topic instead.

You can see, therefore, that this trinity of topic types covers all your information needs.

And it's as easy as 1-2-3....

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