[tei-council] Case study of the desperate need for our Getting Started document

[David Sewell]

Appended below is a lovely example of how easy it is to get into very
deep water when you are trying to figure out how to adapt the TEI to
your purposes by diving right into the "Using the TEI" chapter of the P5
Guidelines. This is a first attempt at a TEI schema customization by
someone who has years of experience as a scholarly editor, but who is
new to XML and TEI. As I reconstruct things, he

1. used oXygen to select "New - XML Schema", obtaining a template
XML file starting with the root <xs:schema> element;

2. used the discussion of <schemaSpec> in chapter 23 to fairly
accurately add references to the modules he wanted to include;

3. attempted to extend the schema by putting in a mix of RELAX NG
(compact syntax) element definitions and what are meant to be references
to attributes or attribute classes.

The result is total chaos that is nevertheless completely understandable
as an attempt to "use the TEI" with the documentation and tools he had at
hand.

Perhaps we could best conceptualize "Getting Started" as our attempt to
insure that this will never happen to anyone again?

David

==========================

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    <schemaSpec ident="TEI-minimal" start="TEI">
        <moduleRef key="tei"/>
        <moduleRef key="header"/>
        <moduleRef key="core"/>
        <moduleRef key="textstructure"/>
        <moduleRef key="msdescription"/>
        <moduleRef key="transcr"/>
        <moduleRef key="verse"/>

MSTranscription_p = element manuscript transcription { heading_p, RevRegion_p+ }
RevRegion_p = element revision region { heading_p, (RevSite_p | RevSeq_p | RevNarr_p )+ }
heading_p = element heading { text }
RevSite_p = element revision site { xml:id, RevText_p }
RevText_p = element revision text { att.inscription, Firstext_p,
 Nextext_p, Deletext_p, Insertext_p, Resultext_p }
att.inscription
Deletext_p = element deleted text { att.status, att.delemark, text }
att.status
att.delemark
Insertext_p = element inserted text { att.insertmark, att.insertpos, text }
att.insertmark
att.insertpos
Firstext_p = element first text { text, Deletext_p }
Nextext_p = element next text { text }

    </schemaSpec>
</xs:schema>



-- 
David Sewell, Editorial and Technical Manager
ROTUNDA, The University of Virginia Press
PO Box 801079, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4318 USA
Courier: 310 Old Ivy Way, Suite 302, Charlottesville VA 22903
Email: dsewell at virginia.edu   Tel: +1 434 924 9973
Web: http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/