Hi all, just catching up on the recent list traffic...

Thought I'd throw out a few pointers which came to mind.

-----Original Message----- From: TDWG - Structure of Descriptive Data [mailto:TDWG-SDD@usobi.org]On Behalf Of Robert A. (Bob) Morris Sent: 10 August 2000 20:44 To: TDWG-SDD@usobi.org Subject: Trying it out

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            <CONTRIBUTOR ID>PBH1</CONTRIBUTOR ID>
            <CONTRIBUTOR NAME>P. Bryan Heidorn</CONTRIBUTOR NAME>

Yech. Separate names into different elements for ease of transformation, e.g. alphabetizing.

Some recent relevant discussion (on XML-DEV) regarding the marking up of names [1,2,3,4,5,6] (Personally I like the format proposed by John Cowan, see [4]).

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There must be existing XML mailing address standards around. Better to use them to leverage any other software that also does.

These are good points - it is certainly worth looking around to re-use 'standard' markup conventions where posssible. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative [7] may be one useful resource here. For example they specify qualifiers for some elements (e.g. creator/contributor) [8, 9] which allow identification of name, affiliation, etc.

Even if the exact markup is not used, there are usually useful lessons to be learnt.

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There has been some discussion regarding producing an XML version of the current discussion proposal. Alongside this issues such as version numbering, date last modified, descriptive text, etc. These can be viewed as metadata describing the markup. There are some XML 'patterns' which relate to this area [10, 11].

The XML patterns site [12] is an excellent resource for information on defining good XML document types.

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I've become increasingly convinced lately that the RDF model [13, 14 (useful introduction)] may be useful in this context. For those who are not familiar with RDF it essentially allows one to make assertions about particular objects; expressed as 'triples'.

e.g. socrates is a man, the leaf is ovate.

Still mulling this one over...

[1]. http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200005/msg00396.html [2]. http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200005/msg00408.html [3]. http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200005/msg00412.html [4]. http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200005/msg00422.html [5]. http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200005/msg00410.html [6]. http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200005/msg00423.html [7]. http://purl.org/DC/index.htm [8]. http://purl.org/DC/documents/rec-dces-19990702.htm [9]. http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/dc-agents/files/wd-agent-qual.html [10]. http://www.xmlpatterns.com/SeparateMetadataAndDataMain.shtml [11]. http://www.xmlpatterns.com/HeadBodyMain.shtml [12]. http://www.xmlpatterns.com/index.shtml [13]. http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/ [14]. http://www.xml.com/xml/pub/98/06/rdf.html

Cheers,

L.

-- Leigh Dodds, Systems Architect | "Pluralitas non est ponenda http://weblogs.userland.com/eclectic | sine necessitate" http://www.xml.com/pub/xmldeviant | -- William of Ockham