[tei-council] TEI TITE question

[Martin Holmes]

On 12-05-08 08:30 AM, Kevin Hawkins wrote:
> 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.

That wasn't what I was saying: my point was that we're typically more 
interested in what something _is_ (forename, surname, emphasis, book 
title) than in what it looks like (italics, bold, etc.). One of the 
reasons TEI XML is more useful than (say) RTF is that it can distinguish 
between a book title and emphasis, even though both are presented in 
italics.

That really does assume certain uses of XML, but I think they're the 
prototypical TEI uses, aren't they? Otherwise we might as well be using 
XHTML.

Cheers,
Martin

>
> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>

-- 
Martin Holmes
University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre
(mholmes at uvic.ca)