[osis-core] empty tag / milestone proposal

Wed, 19 Jun 2002 21:41:58 -0400

At 11:04 AM -0700 06/19/02, Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
>As I understand it, <head>text</head> and <head/>text<head/> are NOT 
>identical.
>
>In an XML DOM tree, you have 1 head node with a child text node, in 
>the first case.  The second cases has 3 nodes (2 head and 1 text) 
>all at the same level.

Correct.

>
>The fact that XML ALLOWS this doesn't mean that it is part of the 
>OSIS specification.
>
>I am proposing that, in OSIS, the following 2 structures be 
>interchangable and identical:
>
><verse verseID="jn.1.1">In the beginning...</verse>
><verse verseID="jn.1.1" mStart="jn.1.1"/>In the beginning...<verse 
>mEnd="jn.1.1"/>

You mean, identical at the OSIS level, yes? Since they aren't at DOM.

>
>
>mStart and mEnd should NOT be global attributes.  <div>, for 
>example, should NOT allow this type of behaviour.
>
>Please tell me why this sucks.  I'm perfectly ok with someone 
>explaining why this sucks and finally implementing my problem 
>passages some other way, but I really have been frustrated, and 
>frozen from completing ABS work because this issue has not been 
>resolved.  Can we get more than 2 of us on the phone or in person to 
>deal with these issues that have lagged for more than a month?
>
>	-Troy.
>

I don't think it sucks. It seems a lot like what we had at the Dallas 
meeting, where a bunch of elements came in three forms, like 
<q>...</q> vs. <qStart/>...<qEnd/>. Main diff is that the difference 
is indicated by attributes rather than by using different element 
types.

It does complicate retrieval and styling, I think. For example, to 
get a quote you'd have code something like

find the element with the right ID
if it has mStart
    find the corresponding mEnd
    make a range
else
    make the element's scope into a range
(oh, and scream if it has content AND mStart or mEnd)

a little clunky, but not too bad.

Let's try to hook up tomorrow after we all gets our hands on 
Patrick's latest draft, and see if we can (a) enumerate all remaining 
issues and (b) solve this one. Can people make a concall at any time 
after, say, 10:30am (I have a meeting before that)?

Also, does anybody have facilities for concalls already set up? I can 
try to get ABSI to set one up for us if not.... Or of course we could 
be tacky and use IRC or something.

-- 

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