[tei-council] soft deprecation of @key

[Kevin Hawkins]

On 5/20/2012 5:17 PM, Lou Burnard wrote:
> On 20/05/12 20:47, Kevin Hawkins wrote:
>> All,
>>
>> At last, I've implemented http://purl.org/TEI/fr/3437509.  See the "text
>> changed" links at in case you're interested:
>>
>> http://tei.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/tei?view=revision&revision=10374
>>
>> Lou, over to you to review.
>>
>> --Kevin
>
>
> Well, I think the proposed wording might be improved. The reference to
> <taxonomy>  seems irrelevant -- if you use that, you'd use @ref to point
> at entries in it.

But couldn't someone use <taxonomy> to define a controlled vocabulary of 
terms used in @key throughout the document?  Why can only a @ref point 
to <taxonomy>?

 > And the term "magic token" is probably best not
> eternalised (magic cookie I've never heard of before -- it invites
> confusion with the other sorts of cookie.

I was taking a cue from:

http://wiki.tei-c.org/index.php/TEI-Council-FAQ#What_is_a_.22magic_token.22.3F

in which Stuart helpfully added a link to the Wikipedia page on "magic 
cookie".  It appears that in computer science, people call it that.  It 
seems that we should acknowledge the terminology of this community.

> Here's a suggested revision for the following passage added to CO :
>
>
> "Since the value of the<att>key</att>  attribute does not follow any
> standard syntax, can only be deciphered by a human reader (possibly by
> consulting the<gi>taxonomy</gi>  element in the TEI header), and could
> coincide with a value used by another project, such<term>magic
> tokens</term>  or<term>magic cookies</term>  should be avoided. A
> preferred ..."
>
>
> No particular syntax is proposed for the values of the<att>key</att>
> attribute, since its form will depend entirely on practice within a
> given project. For the same reason, this attribute is not recommended in
> data interchange, since there is no way of ensuring that the values used
> by one project are distinct from those used by another. In such a
> situation, a preferable ...

I prefer the stronger guidance in my version.  In yours, you say "in 
such a situation" (of data interchange) as if the TEI isn't always meant 
to promote data interchange.

--K.