Re: (dsssl) XML not appropriate for TEI: (was Hypothetical question on namespaces)

["Sebastian Rahtz" <sebastian.rahtz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Trent Shipley writes:
 > However one of the guys in the local Phoenix Linux users group who works on 
 > the dbXML project slapped me down hard when I wanted to mark up my 
 > Dissertation in XML.
 > 

 > He said, "SGML is for hand work and narrative documents XML is for
 > automation and encoding non-narrative data.  I don't care what the
 > books say.  I've been in this field for a long time and they are
 > wrong."
I've been in this field for even longer and I say XML is suitable for
hand work. Happy?

 > So I worked for a couple days in XML and then used some SGML
 > shortcuts, then I decided it was much easier to code without the
 > stricter XML rules.
how did you author? why not let a decent editor do the grunt work? eg emacs

 > So this raises real issues about whether XML is appropriate for TEI.
 > 
 > 1) It is used for small projects
which is? the TEI? very definitely untrue

 > 2) The projects tend to be in the Humanities so they have limited funds.
I dont but that correlation. There is plenty of money in the humanities

 > 3) By its very nature coding representations of manuscripts tends
who said the TEI was just for manuscripts?

 > 4) #1 #2 #3 argue against widespread idiot-friendly automation of TEI tools.
not for me they dont. I speak as someone who runs a web site
for a University computing service which is now largely in TEI XML

 > 5) TEI document bases tend to be externally documented and
 > distributed in a> limited and close-knit community.

er, can you justify that statement?

 > 6) Markup for the humanities can benefit from the allow and restrict SGML 
 > features, the so-far unused concurent markup feature, and runs into XML 
 > restrictions.
sorry, I cant buy that either

 >  For example, there is no gurantee that elements will nest when 
 > describing real human communication or artifacts.  You can work around this 
 > in XML with liberal use of anchors and pointers but it is very hard for 
 > humans to work that way.
why is that problem special to the humanities?

at first sight, I would suggest that you are being far jesuitical
about all this. I personally don't think the XML vs SGML
distinction has any real importance.

sebastian


 DSSSList info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dssslist