[osis-core] USFM and "x-" on attribute values

[Patrick Durusau]

Greetings,

In some side traffic Jim Albright has responded to my suggestion of 
mapping USFM values (where necessary) to the type attributes with the 
"x-" extension that:

> Again this will mean a LOT OF STANDARDS when using the x-extention 
> 
> method of handling situations. I believe we have a reasonable set of 
> enumerated values that can be added. Including them in OSIS will help 
> standardize the situation. Allowing everyone to choose x-what they want 
> will put us back to where we came from... 
> Read MANY STANDARDS EQUALS NO STANDARD!!!!!

Interesting point. I was assuming that with a standardized set of "x-" 
values, that would solve the problem. By standardized I mean by the 
organization using them. Of course, that would mean that you would not 
get schema validation of the values for free, which is something I did 
not consider.

Fortunately, the schema is designed so that we can enumerate values for 
the type attributes, without breaking prior versions (so long as we are 
adding values) since all types without enumerated values were required 
to have the "x-" extensions anyway.

Since the USFM to OSIS case is a very important one, the most important 
one I can imagine, what is the general feeling about incorporating 
(where necessary) the values required for the USFM to OSIS mapping?

Users who are not interested in the USFM values would be free to ignore 
them, so I don't think there is a downside to including them.

Something similar to what we worked on in Dallas for type on <seg>.?

Contrarywise, it is a case of going from USFM, which is supposed to 
already be standarized, to OSIS. If one starts with a non-standardized 
file, then the result will vary from conversion to conversion.

Sounds like the conversion to OSIS would become the test of whether the 
USFM file meet its own standardization practices. In other words, if the 
values from the USFM file resulted in a non-allowable value for an OSIS 
attribute, you get a schema validation error. Hmmm, that seems like a 
long way around to go in terms of getting validation on the usage in the 
USFM file.

Thoughts? Comments?

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Patrick

-- 
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
Patrick.Durusau@sbl-site.org
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model

Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!