[osis-core] Reference Syntax Proposal

[Harry Plantinga]

> But I am not sure what purpose the extension is trying to serve.  Can
> someone enlighten me regarding what benefit there is by allowing the
> extension behavior.  All I see are multiple step searches and no clear
> benefit.
> 
> Do we only allow extension to standard references that have the MAXIMUM
> number of number of identifiers defined by the reference system? Can I
> say Matt.1.myOwnSubdivision and Matt.1.44 to both mean subdivisions of
> Matt.1 of my own design?  Also potentially problematic is the "Hebrew"
> reference system Patrick has reference to in the past, which seems to
> have an "a" and "b" part for the verses in the Psalms, but not in the
> rest of the Bible.  In this case we would have to intuitively know that
> "Ps.1.1.a" is a standard identifier and not an extension.  We could
> however extend it with "Ps.1.1.a.a" and "Ps.1.1.a.b" AND could
> ambiguously extend "Ps.1.1" with "Ps.1.1.a"!

Todd,

The proposal is a means of identifying segments of a split container.
If Matt.1.1 has to be split, using Matt.1.1.myId1 and Matt.1.1.myId2
allows us to find the pieces using a relatively straightforward algorithm.

You are right that we wouldn't know just from looking whether 
Matt.1.1.myId1 is in the reference system or is an extension. Can you 
think of situations where that would be a problem?

-Harry