[tei-council] Possibilities for new file names.

Lou Burnard lou.burnard at computing-services.oxford.ac.uk
Fri Aug 4 10:39:35 EDT 2006


James Cummings wrote:

>>
>>Thank you for proposing new short names. I don't much care what the
>>specific names are, but I think something more mnemonic than an
>>inscrutible two letters will be very useful to new Council members and
>>to plain ol' TEI users.

I remain unconvinced that this is a useful activity. If Council members 
  find 2 letter codes "inscrutible" how do you they cope with their PIN 
numbers, their ZIP codes or any number of other such annoyances? As to 
exposing the 2 letter codes to plain ol TEI users, I don't believe 
that's ever been proposed.

> 
> I agree with Dot that we have much more important things to thing about (like
> the PB stuff and backward compatibility). 

Absolutely. I am 1000% with Dot on this one.


  But, if we were to think of criteria
> I would think that the names would have to:
> 
> a) Be able to work in an internationalised context

as do 2 letter arbitrary codes

> b) Be mnemonic or at least instantly recognisable as to which chapter they referred

these goals may be incompatible ...

> c) Not be overly long, so they work as part of URLs
> 

as are 2 letter codes!

> To answer a) I think they need to have some unchanging uninternationalised
> portion.  I had left the two-letter codes in my first suggestion specifically
> for this reason.  It might be better, if and only if the chapter divisions are
> going to remain generally stable, to use the chapter number instead.
> 

the advantage of using arbitrary letters over arbitrary numbers is 
fairly selkf evident

> So instead of:
> 
> HD.xml -> HD-TEI_Header.xml
> 
> we might use something like:
> 
> HD.xml -> 05-TEI_Header.xml
> 

Both possibilities seem to me to combine the worst of both worlds!


> But I think it would be up to the editors to decide whether the current chapter
> divisions are going to be stable enough for that for the foreseeable future.  If
> they are, I might prefer this.

Chapter divisions are not yet stable.

> 
> With c) there are some problematic chapters where you can't just choose one
> word.... what about Linking, Segmentation, and Alignment, for example?
> 

That's why an arbitrary 2 letter code is the answer!

> -James
> 




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