From: Devin Kouts (devinkouts_at_earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Feb 04 2001 - 16:33:14 CET
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Garry Petrie wrote:
> Paul & Eleanor wrote:
>
>>
>> I recall some of the early Toporobot articles talking about
>> required organization schemes. They seems impossible to me.
>> The software doesn't drive surveys the software needs to
>> deal with the types of real data that is out there.
>> Garry, I think we are on the same page on this one.
>
>
> Exactly.
>
It does appear that Toporobot and Caverender force the data to be
recorded in a certain arrangement. And that arrangement does not mimic
the method in which the data was collected by the survey team. Or are
Europeans really surveying one passage at a time until it's done? Don't
they survey multiple passssages at a time in one cave on one day?
I strongly believe that an XML format should follow the natural schema
created by the act of surveying. I.e describe everything that is
collected in "most" surveys, and arrange surveys to reflect how they
were accomplished (e.g. much like this listserver, threads [surveys],
containing meassages [individual survey trips], sorted by time [default
sort]). (see
http://www.karto.ethz.ch/~an/caving/cavexml/mailinglist/february/)
It is a very bad practice to begin "processing" data between the medium
it's recorded in (e.g. mylar or survey book) and the electronic
representation of that data. This means no human or machine processing
should occur along the way. Everything in the XML file should look just
as it was in the book (no conversion to metric, no arrangement into
morphologic organization, etc.). All processing should be handled after
the fact, by the application, based upon data available in the data file
(including processing instructions). If one application pre-processes
data before it is stored it could decrease precission and
createproprietary inconsistencies that other applications can't deal
with, in effectdefeating the purpose of an XML standard.
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