[tei-council] Topics for discussion: nameSpace/tagUsage

[Lou Burnard]

Julia Flanders wrote:

> --adding namespace info to <tagUsage>: the goal is clearly important. I 
> like the <nameSpace> element as a wrapper around <tagUsage> elements, 
> not least because we could also provide therein a place to provide info 
> about that namespace. I think we could even require this element (rather 
> than allowing it to be optional and assuming TEI namespace in its 
> absence); this will be the least of people's conversion challenges when 
> they go to P5. As an alternative, wouldn't a namespace= attribute on 
> <tagUsage> do the trick? Are there significant advantages to grouping 
> all the elements from a given namespace within a wrapper?  

A namespace has to be supplied as a fairly long string: a namespace 
attribute on every tagUsage element would be quite a high overhead imho.

As an
> addendum: I would suggest that we drop the requirement that there be a 
> <tagUsage> element for every GI; the useful functions of <tagUsage> 
> these days seem to me to be rendition and documentation; verification of 
> the number of elements seems a little old-fashioned.

I fear I don't agree here. Documentation of tagUsage should include 
information about frequency of deployment: that's what it's for. It's 
not just for verification -- if I am doing a quick trawl through a 
digital library to find texts containing  <foo> elements, I really want 
to reliably know which texts have got oodles of them and which haven't.

I think that recommended rendition info should be in a separate element. 
  It confuses the issue to lump it together with tagUsage and seems 
unwontedly normative aspect in this context. Also, separating it out 
would enable you to document different rendition policies for the same 
element.

Lou