Re: [office] Glossary for 1.2

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Dave,

Dave Pawson wrote:
> 2008/7/16 Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>:
>
>   
>>> Due to the length of the document I disagree.
>>> Searching for a term is horrible and wastes time in the current standard.
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> Ok but is this another "judgment" call as to how familiar the reader should
>> be with the subject matter of the standard?
>>     
>
> 'Should be'?
> So a reader should be familiar with ODF prior to reading the standard?
> No thanks Patrick.
>
> Judge the clarity by viewing it as a new reader.
>
>   
If you read the JTC 1 Directives on standards you will find that 
standards are written presuming a great deal of knowledge on the part of 
the reader. It is what makes them short enough to be useful (well, in 
some cases). Granted there is a school of tutorial style standards but I 
am not a member.
>
>
>   
>> Personally I wouldn't define any XML terminology or anything that is
>> commonly known in office markup circles.
>>     
>
> "commonly known in office markup circles." ?
>   No thanks. That's exclusive.
>
>   
And what is wrong with being "exclusive?" As I mentioned, I don't intend 
to define XML either. That is exclusive.

Or is it only certain kinds of "exclusive" that bother you?
>   
>> I suppose something like "metadata manifest" which will appear for the first
>> time in ODF 1.2 merits a definition but that is one I would put in context
>> since you are unlikely to encounter it in other parts of the standard.
>>     
>
> If it's an odd term, link the first usage to the glossary|definitions.
> Done.
>
>   
You put a lot of weight on "odd term." What is an "odd term" to you from 
an XSL-FO perspective might not be an "odd term" to me and vice versa.

The problem in this sort of discussion is that everyone (including me) 
has a set of examples in mind that they don't ever trot out. This is not 
an issue that can be settled in the abstract.
>
>   
>> Do note that we are generating extensive cross-references for elements and
>> attributes and it would be quite easy to do the same for "special" terms.
>>     
>
> That doesn't help with comprehension and does make it harder
> for compliance testing.
> Another one for the 'annotated specification'?
>
>   
Quite possible. I wonder if we can use one of the mechanisms in ODF 1.2 
to mark some term and its definition, in situ and then for the annotated 
version, have that automatically extracted and sorted into a definitions 
section? That should be doable and other occurrences of that term could 
have automatic links generated to that definition.

That would satisfy my concern that we distinguish between the standard 
and the handbook on the same subject.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick
> regards
>
>
>
>   

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)