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

[Michael Brauer - Sun Germany - ham02 - Hamburg <Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM>]

Patrick,

Patrick Durusau wrote:
> Bob,
> 
> Bob Jolliffe wrote:
>> Greetings.  We are still on an extended public holiday in SA which is 
>> why I've been so quiet ...
>>
>>   
> Cool!
> 
> Just quickly I would note that I see these terms as a native English 
> speaker and so, yes, I have no doubt whatsoever about the expansion of 
> the abbreviations.
> 
> However, having said that, note that I am a *native English speaker.*
> 
> Moreover, it is a question of consistency. If you review the examples, 
> you will find that sometimes we use the shorter form and sometimes the 
> longer. If we had consistently used the shorter form, like we did with 
> text:p, then you might have an argument. A sturdy indefensible as Fowler 
> would put it.
> 
> But, if we are ourselves inconsistent, then what are we honoring? Our 
> ability to not carefully check our own work for consistency?

Well, I agree that there seem to be some inconsistencies at the first 
glance, but many of the element names actually have been "borrowed" 
directly from other standards on which we are based (I have taken the 
term "borrow" from our charter, which says we should "borrow" from 
similar, existing standards wherever possible and permitted).

So, <text:p>, <text:h>, <text:a> have been taken from HTML (as well as 
href and nohref). All the anim attribues have their direct counterparts 
in SMIL, that is a W3C specification but uses other rules for element 
and attribute names then XSL-FO, from which we took many formatting 
properties. <draw:rect> is our counterpart to SVG's <draw:rect>. The 
term "indent" is used in the XSL-FO specification, and the term "auto", too.

So, there are probably some situations where we have chosen inconsistent 
names or unclear abbreviations when we have added new elements and 
attributes. But many of the names you are listing have been taken from 
the standards we are based on, because we are not only reusing the 
semantics, but also the element and attribute names, and their terminology.

Michael

-- 
Michael Brauer, Technical Architect Software Engineering
StarOffice/OpenOffice.org
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