Re: [office] Groups - ODF_Element_Naming_01 (ODF_Element_Naming_01.pdf) uploaded

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

Patrick, are you making a distinction
between inconsistencies in new elements being added to ODF versus inconsistencies
in ODF 1.0/ODF 1.1 names?

If it is possible to break these out,
that would be great.

Things that we're adding to ODF 1.2
we should be able to freely rename, retype, whatever.  But for existing
names we'll need to go through a deprecation cycle.

Also, I don't mind some abbreviations
where they are in every day use.  So min/max/auto/multi are blessed
by age.  The best advice I ever heard on abbreviations was that they
were dangerous when different people could abbreviate the same word differently,
and this will lead to error.  So what is the abbreviation for "table"?
 Is it "tbl" or is it "tab" or is it "tb"?
 There is no accepted abbreviation.  So it should always be written
out.  But what is the abbreviation for "automatic"?  I
think you get 100% of people to agree that the answer is "auto".
 So maybe that is a safe abbreviation to use.

Other good guidelines are:  It
should be easily pronounceable  and understood when spoken.  
Odd requirement for an XML standard, but if this is not true, then it is
hard to review the standard with everyone over the telephone!

It is a balancing act.  My principle
is based on the belief that computing power will continue to grow and become
cheaper, while programmers will probably not get much smarter than they
are.  In other words, technology improves faster than evolution.  So
making life more difficult for programmers in order to save a byte of storage
is usually a poor trade-off, at least when measured over technology time
spans of a decade or more.  On the other hand, names that are too
long make will programmers lives more difficult as well, so common sense
needs to prevail in the end.

-Rob

___________________________

Rob Weir
Software Architect
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Software Group

email: robert_weir@us.ibm.com
phone: 1-978-399-7122
blog: http://www.robweir.com/blog/

patrick@durusau.net wrote on 05/01/2008 04:47:37 PM:

> Greetings!
> 
> I have finished inserting the markers for adding automatically generated
> text to the current draft so I celebrated by reviewing ODF for consistency
> on element and attribute names. ;-) 
> 
> Ok, ok, each to his own! 
> 
> Anyway, this document details 9 elements whose names need hyphens
and 31
> that may need expansion of abbreviations. 
> 
> I will be posting the listing for abbreviations in just a minute.
> 
> Hope everyone is having a great day!
> 
> Patrick
> 
>  -- Patrick Durusau*
> 
> The document named ODF_Element_Naming_01 (ODF_Element_Naming_01.pdf)
has
> been submitted by Patrick Durusau* to the OASIS Open Document Format
for
> Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC document repository.
> 
> Document Description:
> Use of hyphens and abbreviations in ODF element names.
> 
> View Document Details:
> http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/office/document.php?
> document_id=28168
> 
> Download Document:  
> http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/office/download.php/
> 28168/ODF_Element_Naming_01.pdf
> 
> 
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