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November 1999

19 participants
72 discussions

Re: The end of DELTA?
by Leigh Dodds 22 Nov '99

22 Nov '99

> As an attempt to start a discussion, I am posting this to ask: do we all > really agree that there should be a new standard for descriptive data > based on XML, as a substitute for DELTA (as well as NEXUS and XDF)? Or > should we instead just try to improve one of the existing formats? >>>From a purely technological perspective I'm convinced that XML is an excellent mechanism for describing structured data - which is what much of DELTA is all about. Standardising on … [View More]something like XML means that custom parsers/parsing routines can be eliminated, making it much easier to write software to manipulate the information. I've already run over these issues in my web page on XDELTA. > As of myself, when I first read the specifications of "XDELTA", I was under > the impression that in some way the DELTA format as we know it would > then become obsolete... But what of NEXUS, or XDF? Has anyone considered > of the integration of these formats plus DELTA into a single new, > XML-based, format for descriptive data? :) I didn't mean to imply that, just that using XML would provide a better underlying data format. The reason I've been holding fire on additional work is that I believe that a proper requirements analysis needs to be done to decide what data needs to be captured by the standard - does DELTA meet all the current requirements of taxonomists? Are there other standards (e.g. NEXUS, etc) which are better suited to some applications/data? Can these be integrated into a single new standard (or modular standard)? As a computer scientist rather than a taxonomist I don't feel qualified to address these issues, as I'm not working with this data on a daily basis. Perhaps we should start by building a list of requirements and then measuring DELTA, NEXUS, etc against them to see whether they meet them. If they do - then theres no reason for change, if they don't then it may be time for a new standard. XML is only one possible 'syntax' for such a standard, but its one which has a lot of software support. Note that when I refer to DELTA I refer to the data/file format specifically and not the application software. These should be evaluated separately. So, what do people see as the basic requirements for this kind of format? - ease of use (i.e. authoring) - ease of processing (parsing, validating, reading, converting) - ease of sharing (i.e. distribution) - open-ness (i.e. proprietary/non-proprietary) - ease of extensibility (i.e. ability to add more information cleanly at a later data) - internationalization - un-abiguity of data representation - unlimited size of data sets? (i.e. any limitation on character names, lengths, item names, numbers, etc) What types of data need to be modelled by the format? (this can be a post-requirements gathering step, but some consideration needs to be given early on to measure the 'success' of the current formats) - what types of characters? (real, integer, text, etc) - what types of data (text, images, other formats?) Just some thoughts. L. [View Less]

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The end of DELTA?
by Mauro J. Cavalcanti 22 Nov '99

22 Nov '99

Gregor Hagedorn wrote: > > --------------------------------------------------- > * Call for participation in email discussion list * > --------------------------------------------------- > > Dear colleagues, > > As agreed upon at the TDWG meeting in Harvard last month, a TDWG > subgroup will attempt to analyze the requirements for a new standard > for descriptive data based on XML. It is hoped that this standard > will reach universal recognition to become at … [View More]

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