[sword-devel] Bibtex for modules

[Greg Hellings]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 5:19 PM, Trevor Jenkins
<trevor.jenkins at suneidesis.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2011, Greg Hellings <greg.hellings at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > While I'd have no quibble with bibliographic data being recorded in .conf
>> > files it should be there in a neutral form and specific functions written
>> > to produce it in the users required/requested format.
>>
>> Alternatively every desired format could be stored in the .conf file.
>
> No no no. That way leaves to inconsistencies and corruption. Apply 3NF and
> 4NF normalisation to this data. If the bibliographic data is to be there
> put it there only once and then have some API layer to extract and present
> it in what ever format the user needs.

Did you read the rest of my email or did you stop to throw fire on one
of a list of alternatives I gave?

3NF, BCNF and 4NF are all fine and good when you're drawing out a
database schema on a piece of paper.  In actual practice they often
lead to massively more computation and upkeep than simply
denormalizing the data.  In this case, BibTeX is basically the same as
what you are prescribing - each of the pieces of data split out into
its own, separate field. It is already a standardized, well built tool
to handle all of the intricacies and details of creating the type of
information the user has requested.  It is open and has a large array
of tools which can process it into many different types of output
format.

So which is it - do you want this data to be Normal Formed into the
ground and then SWORD needs to know how to support the citation format
du jour plus all the legacies?  Or shall we produce something that the
end user, with a specific and pointed problem, can use?  I sure don't
want to keep track of processing some arbitrary number of formats.  We
have a person who has asked for BibTeX support - is there any reason
for not supporting BibTeX other than, "Well I don't use it?"

--Greg