[osis-core] empty tag / milestone proposal

[Patrick Durusau]

Harry,

Harry Plantinga wrote:

>Hey, here's an idea that will eliminate a large percentage of
>the hierarchy overlap problems that have been identified so far.
>Don't use <q>, just use ".
>
>Just kidding.  The real proposal is to not treat <q> as a container.
>(Does one ever really need it to be a container?)  Use <qstart>
>and <qend>.  Or use <q mStart=""/> <q mEnd=""/> but don't require
>processing software to treat that as a container.  Just use it
>to put in the appropriate " symbols.
>
Realize you were kidding about " but why not suggest the entities &quot; 
and &apos; which are pre-defined for XML? If what you are seriously 
suggesting is markup to stand in for symbols, <q mStart=" "/>, the 
entity route gets you there without tormenting markup. ;-)

Patrick


>
>-whp
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: owner-osis-core@bibletechnologieswg.org
>>[mailto:owner-osis-core@bibletechnologieswg.org]On Behalf Of Steve
>>DeRose
>>Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 10:06 PM
>>To: osis-core@bibletechnologieswg.org
>>Subject: RE: [osis-core] empty tag / milestone proposal
>>
>>
>>Like Harry, I'm torn over this (and want to go to bed).
>>
>>At least the number of choices is small. It seems like we're down to
>>
>>a) use segments
>>
>>b) use milestones
>>
>>c) allow both
>>
>>Troy and Harry have described the tradeoffs really well, IMHO.
>>
>>The usual TEI approach in such case was to allow both. This has 
>>advantages similar to those of many Vatican II pronouncements: 
>>everybody feels they got what they wanted; and disadvantages likewise 
>>similar: nobody really ended up compatible.
>>
>>I think we need to either prohibit or explicitly allow the use of 
>>empty forms. Although Patrick is right that you can always dump in 
>>empty elements for the start and end, the semantics implied by that 
>>syntax are not what we want.
>>
>>    <q mStart=""/>some quoted text<q mEnd=""/>
>>
>>means 3 siblings, 2 being empty quotations. That's reeally not the 
>>same meaning as
>>
>>    <q>some quoted text</q>
>>
>>(Eudora's spellchecker kindly underscores the tags for me, thus 
>>making those q's look an awful lot like g's).
>>
>>As someone pointed out, it's not the same DOM tree, and 
>>structure-aware tools such as CSS and XSLT don't have any way to deal 
>>with it (that one worries me considerably, since people commonly 
>>judge by appearances, and our appearances would be handicapped in 
>>most systems).
>>
>>Thus, although people could encode quotes with pairs of empties, 
>>their data would fail to "work" in typical software.
>>
>>Mainly for that reason, I think I'm inclined to a solution such as:
>>
>>a) permit only segmentation in core, but document clearly how it gets 
>>messy (explosively messy) as the amount of overlap increases.
>>
>>b) create a specific module for heavy annotation, that adds the 
>>mStart/mEnd construct for a lot of element types, that defines the 
>>semantics intended, and that discusses the issues involved. Make 
>>support of this module a separate conformance level, and require that 
>>systems specify whether they support it or not.
>>
>>To paraphrase Zoot: Oooh, it's not a very good solution, is it? But 
>>we are nice, and will see to your every markup need.
>>
>>-- 
>>
>>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
>>

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