Re: text to bibliography?

On Aug 16, 7:33 pm, p0 <yves.dho...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
grammatim schreef:



On Aug 16, 8:23 am, p0 <yves.dho...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
grammatim schreef:

On Aug 15, 7:28 pm, p0 <yves.dho...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
grammatim schreef:

On Aug 14, 6:34 pm, p0 <yves.dho...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The software does not support what you want. And I think it is
doubtful it ever will.

An "author" of a book is not necessarely represented by a b:Author/
b:Author element in your XML.

You seem to be overlooking the bit where I said this could be done by
inserting a code, which would still be vastly preferable to retyping
the entire contents of a full subject bibliography.

I was talking about automatically processing lists without codes. The
second part of my reply stated that as soon as you start using codes,
you can just as well use xml tags and there would be no point I doing
anything automatically.

How is an "xml tag" not a code?

It is a code, the point is, once you add the xml tags, there is no
more need for processing. You have done the entire processing by hand..
All that is left to do is copy/pasting the sources into the database
and you are done.

How is typing (or pasting) a few-letter code not better than typing
entire names, titles, etc.?

Xml was intended to be human readable. The disadvantage is that tags
tend to be long, the major advantage is that you don't have to learn a
few dozen non-descriptive codes by heart (would @c be city, comments,
chapternumber, conferencename, country, court, or casenumber?). Also
the use of closing tags is a good way in getting around punctuation
issues.

The following simple example:

John Doe. "A book by myself". London, 2008.

would result in the following string with xml 'codes':

<b:Source><b:SourceType>Book</
b:SourceType><b:Author><b:Author><b:NameList><b:Person><b:First>John</
b:First><b:Last>Doe</b:Last></b:Person></b:NameList></b:Author></
b:Author><b:Garbage>. "</b:Garbage><b:Title>A book by myself</
b:Title><b:Garbage>". </b:Garbage><b:City>London</b:City><b:Garbage>,
</b:Garbage><b:Year>2008</b:Year><b:Garbage>.</b:Garbage><b:Source>

What a stupid system.

I didn't design the xml schema for bibliographies, you will have to
take that one up with Microsoft :-).

That's why it wasn't rude to call it stupid!

On a side note, the beauty of custom xml in ooxml is that you can
define your own way of storing data. And you don't even have to stick
to xml: you can store binary data in an xml file. So if you really are
unhappy with the format, you can easily extend Word with your own set
of bibliographic tools.

I don't know what any of that means.

I would expect something like

<au>Doe, John</au><ti>A Book by Myself</ti><pl>London</pl><pu>Smith &
Wesson</pu><yr>2008</yr>

And </yr> isn't needed because it's always 4 digits, and the place and
publisher would use codes rather than spelling out: <pl>L<pu>SW. <au>
is known to always select an item from the Name list -- as are also
<ed>, <tr>, etc.

What would "ed" be? editor? edition?

<ed> vs. <edn>

The entire point of using full
discriptive names in tags rather than crafty shortcuts is to make
things clear for the people who have to add them.

But the people shouldn't ever need to see them! They should see a form
to fill in, with each slot labeled with the category that goes in it.
"Author" would have a drop-down list of all Names, since most subject
bibliographies involve several works by the same person. (Likewise for
"Place" and "Publisher.")

Yes you will have to
type more, but at least elements will be defined in such a way that
there is no confusion for the user. And for non-english speaking
people, full words are a lot easier to understand than shady
abbreviations.

Not at all problem if you have an internationalizationized, or
whatever they call it, interface.

In your <au> how would you see the difference between first, middle
and last names? And what if your author is a corporation? In that
case, it wouldn't be part of a namelist.

Corporations don't author scholarly works.

And a year is not always displayed with 4 digits, some styles require
you to only print 2. And what if a range of years would be entered?
2008-2009 or 2008-09 or 08-09 ... And I haven't come across it, but I
wouldn't be surprised if some crazy citation style requires you to
enter the year in roman numerals MMVIII. The point is, closing tags
are necessary to define boundaries. In your version you are already
conveniently letting out punctuation.

Why would L represent London? To me, it represents Leichester.

How many publishers are headquartered in Leichester, wherever that is?

Once
again, the small gain you can get with your code is hardly worth the
effort and confusion you introduce. BibTeX allows for the usage of
codes. So there you could define L for London. But it is never used
like that. The only usage I have seen of codes is for the abbreviation
of journal names (which is really a small bunch since they are grouped
on topic) and the localization of month names.

You can come up with dozens of shortcuts to store and process
bibliographic data but with every shortcut you introduce, you get rid
of functionality that others might need, and/or trade in usability for
(non-expert) users.

Have a look at the, alas, defunct Mac program Papyrus (it wasn't worth
the effort for the creator to adapt it for OS X, so he just offers it
as freeware to anyone with a "legacy system," but its discussion list
was still active back when I had to abandon the Mac, two+ years ago).

where b:Garbage elements are meaningless elements and should be
removed from the source at a later stage. Do you really think typing/
copying/pasting out all those 'codes' is easier then copy/pasting 5
elements into a form?

A boo with a 20-word title can have six editors.

If the book would be an edited book,
than the author would be a b:Author/b:Editor element. If the book
would be a translated work, the author would be a b:Author/
b:Translator element.

If it were a proper relational database, then there would be a list of
"names," and in any particular instance, a name could be an "author,"
an "editor," a "translator," or even some combination of the above.

I am not a specialist when it comes to relational database, but I
agree that the current layout is not in full normal form. However the
way the names are stored seems to be similar as with other programs
(EndNote -http://www.endnote.com/support/helpdocs/endnote.zip).

Personally, I also see no gain in going for a relational database in
full normal form where names (b:Person elements) are put in a separate
list. For starters, if you would share the same names across multiple
sources, you would have to create a two-way link: source to one or
more names, and name to one or more sources. The reason for the first
link is obvious: indicating which names participated in the source.
The second link is necessary in case you would remove a source. You
would have to know if a name became obsolete or not. I would suspect
the overhead being greater than the benefits for this case.

Not sure why I'd remove a source ...

Space constraints, access to better sources, overlap, ...

This is scholarship, not a public lending library that only has room
for x number of books on its shelves.

Conference papers are limited in number of pages. And if you have to
pick between reporting your data or having an extra reference, the
reference is normally the first to go.

We're talking about a bibliographic database, not a list of
references.

read more »

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