At 02:00 PM 8/23/2006, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
>>Yet the principles were stated as absolutes, not as "in your case, 
>>on balance".
>hey, can we be clear that any "principles" stated have simply
>been the options or James or I? The TEI Consortium has
>not yet agreed or published anything about conformance
>beyond the existing chapter in the Guidelines, essentially
>untouched for many years. We _may_ propose a big revision
>of that chapter, or we may not.

But does the bishop, or his secretary, *ever* speak for himself? :-)

>>And here's the rub. This runs the risk of making the ODD project to 
>>be as important or more so than the encoding project. It's like the 
>>master chef insisting that the 12-year-old aspiring cook be able to 
>>explain in detail how her chicken stew is *not* a classic 
>>coq-au-vin, and justify her variations, before she even cooks it.
>I know what you mean about the ODD tail wagging the TEI text dog, 
>but your analogy
>does not seem right to me. The child chef (bizarre, my 12 year old 
>is doing a cookery
>class next week, how did you know???) should not claim her vile 
>pottage is coq-au-vin,
>if it does not follow the agreed recipe, because that would confuse 
>the recipient. She
>should just say "look, here's a chicken dish I made up, isn't it 
>nice". When she applies
>for a job in a restaurant, she should demonstrate she can cook a 
>classic coq-au-vin,
>and explain to the head chef why she always puts in some ginger.

Nicely stated, although I dare say that confronted with such pottage, 
you would (will?) be indulgent as to its name -- in full awareness 
that worse things have been called better. Yet maybe the thing is to 
encourage newcomers to develop *towards* TEI and aim for 
"conformance" and even "interoperability" as a medium- or long-term 
goal while they address their project requirements, rather than as a 
sine qua non, without which they should not ever presume even to raise a hand.

As for the chef or aspiring chef -- how did *you* know I always put 
ginger in the coq-au-vin? (or at any rate, into the stock therein?)

Cheers,
Wendell


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