[osis-core] Milestones Summary

[Steve DeRose]

At 10:06 AM -0400 06/06/02, Patrick Durusau wrote:
>Guys,
>
>An attempt to summarize the issues and ask some questions that may 
>(or may not!) help frame this for resolution:
>
>1. Prev/Next: TEI allows these attributes both for crossing 
>boundaries as well as segments that are "out of order" (which 
>assumes you have some notion other than the order of appearance in 
>the text as the correct order for the segments).

Which could, of course, arise for us in various translation cases 
where the receptor language has different order constraints.

>
>2. Assuming segs were in the proper order, interesting idea about 
>using a segID mechanism to find all the particular segs for a verse 
>for example. (Suggested by Troy.)
>
>3. Not quite sure about the assumption that English translations 
>with multiple levels of quotes (the most common case cited so far) 
>will have additional levels of overlapping markup. I do agree in 
>principle that we need mechanisms that would solve that problem. 
>Annotation markup is most generally pointing (attaching) to a 
>segment of text and does not generally exist in the same node as the 
>principal text.

Kirk, want to weigh in on this one?

>
>4. Note that the original milestone mechanism had a large array of 
>milestone elements with implied semantics, none of which are really 
>required for actual use. Consider that we now have a milestone 
>element, that you can use anyway you like. Perhaps better attributes 
>would make it easier to duplicate the functions Troy saw in the 
>original mechanism.
>
>Simply lacking a "meaningful" name, verseStart, quoteStart, 
>verseEnd, quoteEnd, does not affect the use or operation of the 
>current milestone element. It may be the case that we need to take 
>the case of Matthew 13 as an example of where the milestone element 
>should be used.

Are you saying mmilestones could be substituted for anything that 
crosses? Something like <milestone type="quote" which="start".../> ? 
Funky.

>
>I am wondering if we are seeking a uniform solution to what may be a 
>problem that varies according to context and that we are 
>artificially creating a Hobson's choice for ourselves.
>
>5. XML Syntax Question:
>
>It is always possible to write an XML element as devoid of content, 
>i.e., <quote id="123" type="quoteStart" />, provided the content 
>model does not require another element to appear within it. (Or so I 
>am reading the standard, Steve, can you confirm?)

Yes; this was debated but in the end we decided that <x></x> is 
defined to be exactly the same as <x/>.


>
>Assuming that is the case, should we look at the content models for 
>a possible solution? In addition to the generic milestone element?
>
>Comments on:
>
>A. Use of generic milestone (assume some type typology)?
>
>B. Empty element (where allowed by the content model)?
>
>C. Segmentation (where appropriate)?
>
>D. Do we need a uniform solution?
>
>E. Other solutions?
>
>I think we all realize this is a problem that needs a robust 
>solution and within the constraints of our time and other duties 
>(Todd is managing a larger brood now!) we are all listening and 
>trying to understand the posts and questions being posed.

I'm kind of torn over this -- I see the segemented approach as easier 
to teach, as well as easier for retrieval and style processing 
(neither CSS nor XSL can do much of anything with milestones, since 
property inheritance won't work; except they can do quotes where they 
can at least insert quotation marks right). But milestones are much 
more compact if you have multiple overlapping things in one place.

>
>Patrick
>
>--
>Patrick Durusau
>Director of Research and Development
>Society of Biblical Literature
>pdurusau@emory.edu


-- 

Steve DeRose -- http://www.stg.brown.edu/~sjd
Chair, Bible Technologies Group -- http://www.bibletechnologies.net
Email: sderose@speakeasy.net
Backup email: sderose@mac.com, sjd@stg.brown.edu