The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. The name of the architecture was derived as follows: Darwin: Named for the naturalist Charles Darwin, DITA uses the principles of specialization and inheritance. Information Typing: DITA capitalizes on the semantics of topics (concept, task, reference) and of content (messages, typed phrases, semantic tables). Architecture: DITA provides vertical headroom (new applications) and edgewise extension (specialization into new types) for information.