[tei-council] Disambiguation of <ident> and <idno> (and also <gi>)

[stuart yeates]

On 27/11/11 04:16, James Cummings wrote:
> On 26/11/11 07:13, Martin Holmes wrote:
>>>> ----------<ident>     should be used for tokens such as variable
>>>> names, class names, type names, function names etc. in formal
>>>> programming languages. (It should not be used for element and
>>>> attribute names in XML, for which the special elements<gi>
>>>> and<att>     are provided.)
>>>>
>>>> <idno>     should be used for labels which uniquely identify an
>>>> object or concept in a formal cataloguing system such as a
>>>> database or an RDF store, or in a distributed system such as the
>>>> World Wide Web. ----------
>
> I don't mind these as definitions though they seem a bit discursive. I'd
> move the parenthetical statement to a note/remarks section, along with
> the examples 'such as...' there you could also distinguish between
> idno/ident and cross reference.
>
>>> I suggest that<idno>    be given precedence, since I imagine it's
>>> more widely used.
>>
>> I don't really understand what "precedence" means here. If I've
>> failed to disambiguate the two tags, then I should try again, but I
>> don't think we should ever be in the position of saying "these two
>> tags are basically the same, but you should prefer this one because
>> we have a feeling that more people use it than the other one".
>
> I think what Stuart means is that idno is the more general purpose
> element in this case which _could_ be used for things that might be
> considered idents, but that we have ident as an element for that. e.g.
> that ident = idno/@type='ident'. I'm not sure that entirely fits with
> your definitions though.

Yes, that's what I meant, but James always seems to say it better.

----

Reflection also suggests removing the word 'uniquely' to change

<idno>  should be used for labels which uniquely identify an ...

to

<idno>  should be used for labels which identify an ...

For example, my page at http://www.nzetc.org/ is also http://nzetc.org/. 
because neither is unique, the current wording would not let me use either.

cheers
stuart