[tei-council] rowing back on <mixedContent>

[Martin Holmes]

On 14-07-04 08:12 AM, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
> if people want DTDs, thats fine by me. I’ll convert their Pure ODD markup to DTD syntax for them.
> However, it may well be invalid DTD if they don’t understand what they’re doing.

I think this is very dangerous. I know of several long-standing TEI 
users who have never used anything except a DTD and don't know how to 
use anything else (I just recently showed someone how to create an RNG 
and link to it). Some of them teach TEI regularly. They started with 
DTDs and they continue to use DTDs, and they certainly don't know enough 
to know whether they would be creating a content model that wouldn't 
work in DTD; their assumption is that you create an ODD file (usually 
with Roma), you tweak it maybe in oXygen, and you get a DTD from it 
(again usually with Roma). I think they would be quite happy to move to 
RNG if prompted, but they've never seen a reason to do it; but mainly 
what they want from us is a system that protects them from the 
complexities of writing actual schemas and just works.

Cheers,
Martin

> So I don’t quite agree with your analysis. My suggestion is that we define Pure ODD,
> with <textNode> and all, forget the @allowText idea, and stop trying to second
> guess people’s intent by trying to make plausible DTD for them. If they want to
> constrain their usage to what they know will make decent DTD, that’s their
> business.
>
> so the same old principle - remove any magic or guess work. Translate the
> Pure ODD markup in a simple transparent way. Caveat codor.
> --
> Sebastian Rahtz
> Director (Research) of Academic IT
> University of Oxford IT Services
> 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431
>
> Não sou nada.
> Nunca serei nada.
> Não posso querer ser nada.
> À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.
>