devinkouts@earthlink.net wrote:
> We're in agreement. I strive for maximum flexibility and try to avoid
> narrowing the options a user has for entering data into the XML file.
> How could I ever hope to guess all the lables a role on a cave survey
> could be given (e.g. water boy)? The software developers with whom I
> developed the Cave Survey data in XML requirements beat me up severely
> over the flexibility issue (figuratively).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting a crosslink is a bad thing, nor
that flexibility isn't necessary, but I believe it would be more useful
if you _eventually_ specify roles better than just role is any string,
i.e. CDATA. In fact you need to eventually do better in order to
provide the cross links you claim you wish to have.
role=bookie, role=sketcher and role=book all look fine for many humans,
but I believe it is more useful when the values are constrained to
define values that connect each instrument (probably just use the
same names as the instrument types). Additional free-form values
would also be allowed so that you wouldn't be limited to the recording
the known roles.
Now it is up to everyone who is defining this particular PSC CaveXML to
define when 'eventually' is.
Have fun.
-Paul
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Apr 02 2001 - 18:00:00 CEST