[tei-council] @key to be deprecated?

[Lou Burnard]

I've *never* understood why we still have @cRef -- it was an early 
attempt to define a private Xpath syntax. Ground breaking for the time, 
but since superceded big time. However, Birnbaum Doctrine decrees that 
we can't just nix it.

We did earlier on have a long discussion about the difference between 
@ref and @target, ifirc, in which Sebastian persuaded me (at least) that 
we needed both and they were usefully distinct.


On 20/09/11 16:27, Martin Holmes wrote:
> That brings @cRef and @target into the discussion too. I guess we really
> do need to address all of these in one proposal.
>
> As far as I can see, the same arguments apply to @cRef as to @key, so
> presumably it would also be on the table for deprecation; and I'm now
> not sure whether @target and @ref are sufficiently distinct in purpose
> and usage for both to be useful in the long run. Thorts?
>
> You're right that we should go to TEI-L once we have a clear ticket for
> discussion.
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
>
> On 11-09-20 08:19 AM, David Sewell wrote:
>> Should the issue of deprecating @key be submitted for discussion to
>> TEI-L before any final decision is made? So far as I can see, this has
>> been mentioned only once on TEI-L in posts by Gabby and James, see
>> http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1102&L=TEI-L&P=R297
>>
>> David
>>
>> On Tue, 20 Sep 2011, Martin Holmes wrote:
>>
>>> OK, I'm becoming convinced on this. It looks like we need a ticket in
>>> SF, along the lines of:
>>>
>>> 1. @key will be deprecated. (Still not exactly clear on that process.)
>>>
>>> 2. @ref will be added wherever @key is currently allowed, but @ref is not.
>>>
>>> 3. All examples showing @key will be changed to show @ref, and magic
>>> tokens without colons will be replaced with magic tokens that have colons.
>>>
>>> 4. The documentation for @ref will be expanded to include an explanation
>>> and examples of URIs which are not URLs (by which I presume we mean:
>>> URIs which do not resolve to anything that can be located on the network).
>>>
>>> Have I missed anything? Does this replace or subsume any existing tickets?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Martin
>>>
>>> On 11-09-19 08:49 AM, James Cummings wrote:
>>>> On 19/09/11 16:12, Martin Holmes wrote:
>>>>> Hi James,
>>>>
>>>> Hi Martin,
>>>>
>>>>>> I'll play devil's advocate on this. I think using URIs (in the
>>>>>> form of URNs), even just locally constructed ones like
>>>>>> foo:blort:1234 is a much better system than just bare keys which
>>>>>> are just as much magic.
>>>>>
>>>>> Isn't foo:blort:1234 just magic too? If I've understood the proposal
>>>>> correctly, foo: and blort: don't resolve to anything meaningful; isn't
>>>>> foo:blort:1234 just a magic key that happens to have colons in it?
>>>>
>>>> Yes, that is what I meant be 'just as much magic'. They are both
>>>> magic. However, the URN-style magic key is a faceted one. (I know
>>>> you could just make your @key value do this as well.)
>>>>
>>>>> Backward-compatibility is the obvious one.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, agreed.
>>>>
>>>>> In that case, we're going to have an escalating tension between the
>>>>> Birnbaum doctrine and the need to clean up problems in P5 (like this
>>>>> one, perhaps, if you see it as a problem).
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps, but the Birnbaum Doctrine doesn't say that we're not
>>>> allow to break backwards compatibility, just that we should have
>>>> a deprecation structure to do so.
>>>>
>>>>> You actually caught me doing that (inadvertently) in an early version of
>>>>> the Image Markup Tool, IIRC.
>>>>
>>>> Oh yes, I remember that, naughty Martin. :-P (He says quickly
>>>> hiding any of his code where he certainly sins in greater orders
>>>> of magnitude.)
>>>>
>>>>> And I agree that's completely wrong when
>>>>> using @ref; but I would argue that's why @key is helpful. When you're
>>>>> still working out the structure of your repository and the relative
>>>>> locations of files and subcollections, not having to be precise about
>>>>> the path to a particular @xml:id is very handy.
>>>>
>>>> Surely since you *can* do this ref="foo" then people will just do
>>>> that while they are still working out their repository structure
>>>> or system of magic keys?
>>>>
>>>>> And if you get rid of
>>>>> @key, people are just going to use @n for the same job, I bet.
>>>>
>>>> What people abuse @n for something that is not a potentially
>>>> non-unique number or other label, but instead some magic token to
>>>> identify specific classes of elements?  Never... no one would
>>>> ever do that!  I mean that would be like using @rend to refer to
>>>> _output_ rendition not source rendition. *grin*  Erm, yeah, ok, I
>>>> see your point. People would certainly do that, yes.
>>>>
>>>> I still think using a URN-like URI on @ref is better because it
>>>> forces you to consider _some_ form of classification or
>>>> documentation principle. But yours are all good arguments for
>>>> maintaining @key.
>>>>
>>>> -James
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>