[tei-council] TEI TITE question

[Kevin Hawkins]

I know it sounds crazy, but I don't see how we can say that an encoder 
should be more interested in why something is in italics than in whether 
a name is a surname, patronymic, forename, etc.  It all depends on what 
you want to do with your digital text.  That statement from the gentle 
introduction is even prejudiced, frankly: it assumes certain uses of XML.

On 5/8/2012 10:59 AM, Martin Holmes wrote:
> I don't think I agree with this. As the Gentle Introduction to XML says,
> "XML is more interested in the meaning of data than in its
> presentation." We have lots of ways of encoding names because the
> variety of name types and the subtle distinctions between them are
> things that we're primarily interested in. In the same way, I think most
> encoders are (or perhaps should be?) more interested in why something is
> italic than in the fact that it is italic.
>
> I agree with the point someone made earlier: the slight inconvenience of
> <hi rend="whatever"> is actually useful, because it makes us wonder why
> we're seeing this presentational feature, and perhaps pushes us in the
> direction of encoding it in some more meaningful way (<emph> or whatever).
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
>
> On 12-05-08 07:06 AM, Kevin Hawkins wrote:
>> No!
>>
>> We give people shortcut options like<name> and<bibl> instead of
>> forcing them to think too much by using<forename>,<surname>, and
>> <biblStruct> because we know that for certain envisioned uses of the
>> encoded document, these are perfectly sufficient. How do we know that
>> it's for someone's own good to distinguish various uses of italics?
>>
>> The situation we are in right now is as if the TEI had only:
>>
>> <forename>
>> <surname>
>> <rs type="name">
>>
>> but no:
>>
>> <name>
>>
>> (I understand the distinction Gabby made between semantic and
>> presentational sugar, but now I'm talking about straightforwardness of
>> encoding.)
>>
>> --K.
>>
>> On 5/8/2012 9:58 AM, Lou Burnard wrote:
>>> Exactly! and also to avoid thinking too much. Thought takes time and
>>> costs money.
>>>
>>> On 08/05/12 14:43, Gabriel BODARD wrote:
>>>> To save money on keystrokes, no?
>>>>
>>>> On 08/05/2012 13:52, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
>>>>> We shouldn't forget that the Tite extra tags must come from
>>>>> _somewhere_,
>>>>> not just plucked at random from a fevered brain. Why did that group
>>>>> feel these
>>>>> were needed?
>>>>> --
>>>>> Sebastian Rahtz
>>>>> Head of Information and Support Group
>>>>> Oxford University Computing Services
>>>>> 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431
>>>>>
>>>>> Sólo le pido a Dios
>>>>> que el futuro no me sea indiferente
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>