[tei-council] another ODD

[Lou Burnard]

Hi Marcus

Thanks for the quick reassurance. However, I note that "ODD" is used 
throughout the most recent (July 2008, v 0.6) version of the Open DD 
specification, not least as the root element of an openDD document, 
which does not quite confirm your statement below. I find the phrase 
"ODD document" and "ODD file" throughout that version of the document. I 
also note that it proposes using "odd+xml" as a mimetype value, which 
really is potentially confusing, as we think it likely that people will 
want to use this also for TEI ODD documents.

I look forward to version 0.7...

best wishes

Lou


 Marcus Povey wrote:
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> Hi Lou,
>
> Thanks for getting in touch.
>
> Although we have used ODD in a number of early articles the official
> term we are using now is OpenDD. This is to avoid the problems with
> three letter acronyms you've mentioned.
>
> While some people are using the term "ODD" - generally for comic effect
> - - this is not the official term we sanction.
>
> Marcus
>
> Lou Burnard wrote:
>   
>> Since about 1991, we've been using the acronym ODD to refer to  a
>> document format, originally expressed in SGML  and more recently
>> expressed in XML, which combines the specification of user-documentation
>> and schema generation in a single document -- One Document Does it all.
>> We even have an entry in Wikipedia
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODD_(One_Document_Does_it_all) which gives
>> quite a few references if you want to follow them up (I recommend the
>> one called "RelaxNG with Son of ODD" because it's such a nice title) and
>> the term is pretty well established in the XML markup community. Today I
>> came across your use of the same acronym to describe your proposed "Open
>> Data Definition" for exchange of personal data and thought I'd just
>> register my concern about the likely confusion this might cause. Fair
>> enough, the same acronym is also commonly used (Mr Google tells me) for
>> something called Oppositional Defiant Disorder, but that's not (yet) a
>> commonly used XML vocabulary.  And, as we all know, the biggest
>> challenge facing technology today is that there are only 17576 possible
>> three letter acronyms, so collisions like this are bound to happen!
>> Nevertheless, I hope you won't mind my asking if it's too late for you
>> to reconsider this usage, in the interest of avoiding needless confusion?
>>
>> best wishes
>>
>> Lou Burnard
>> Text Encoding Initiative
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
> - --
> Marcus Povey : Senior Developer : Curverider Ltd
> W: http://www.marcus-povey.co.uk
> E: marcus at elgg.com : T: +44 (0)7824 533 666
>
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