[tei-council] resolving the Birnbaum Biznai

[Lou's Laptop]

I would like to go on record as saying that I regard this development 
(the Kyoto Konstruct?) as not just a good idea but a major step forward. 
The problem it solves is not just a quirk of physDesc, but one that 
pervades the Guidelines. The proposal builds on and extends the work we 
have done so far in applying classes throughout the content models, by 
providing a much needed solution to oft-repeated concerns about the 
over-generality of content models based on them.

The only fly I see in the ointment is that it would appear to preclude 
my using a particular class in different ways. In other words, I might 
have one element in which I want members of a class to be allowed in an 
alternation, and another in which I want them in a sequence. That cannot 
be done in the present implementation, if I understand krekly, without 
redefining the class.

L

Sebastian Rahtz wrote:

>You will recall that yesterday we debated how to resolve the fact that
>David and Matthew wanted a specific set of elements to be allowed
>in <msIdentifier>, in order, but optional; but that this was not
>what they got if the elements were simply put into a model class.
>
>I propose that the idea of a model class be extended to allow
>an extra piece of information which says how it is to be implemented.
>Currently, if a class foo has members a, b and c, it is instantiated
>as:
>
>  model.foo = a | b | c
>
>and it is always used as:
>
>  (model.foo)*
>
>or
>
>  (model.foo)+
>
>I propose an attribute on <classSpec> which
>will allow it to be additionally instantiated as either
>
>  model.foo = a, b, c
>
>or
> 
>  model.foo = a?, b?, c?
>
>and then in real content models we could opt NOT to
>have the surrounding (...)*.
>
>I have implemented and tested this, using <msIdentifier>
>and <physDesc> as a testcase.  I have thus been able to
>refute the Cummings Claim (that msdescription
>depends on namesdates) by making a new (ordered) class
>containing settlement, region, and country.
>
>If anyone sees a flaw in my thinking, or thinks this is a
>bad idea, please speak up.
>
>  
>