[osis-core] Syntax Check

[Harry Plantinga]

Steve DeRose wrote:
> 
> At 12:39 AM -0600 08/26/02, Todd Tillinghast wrote:
> >Patrick,
> >
> >This is a departure from what I understood regarding the 
> structure for 
> >a reference.
> >
> >We MUST ALWAYS have a REFERENCE SYSTEM and WORK is always OPTIONAL.
> 
> that's the part I still don't get. If we don't have both a refsystem 
> and a work,  at least by default, a reference is meaningless, right? 
> Like what is "foo.1.1"?
> 
> But given that, isn't it simply a question of which one(s) we allow 
> people to leave to default?
> 
> I think when average people write "KJV" or "Bible.KJV" or whatever, 
> they will be thinking of the work, not the references system -- most 
> people don't even know that there is more than one reference system. 
> Thus, I think that if someone writes just "Bible.KJV:Matt.1.1" it 
> behooves us to treat that as a work.

Agreed. The work is the primary thought-entity, not the reference
system. 
The reference system need not be specified in 99% of the cases. 
"Bible.KJV" can be treated as a generic work identifier.
 
> At one point we had the notion that works would be declared in the 
> header, and that a work declaration could also specify the reference 
> system(s) it supports. If we allowed works to simply specify their 
> default reference system within their <work> declaration element, 
> then specifying the work without a reference system anywhere else, is 
> well-defined because you simply use that default.

That is essentially what I just proposed (though of course this message
was posted to the list earlier).

-Harry