Re: Authoring versus Interchange

> On 01 Dec 2015, at 13:13, Robin Berjon <robin@berjon.com> wrote:
> 
> Were I in a philosophical mood I might suggest that science creates
> simplicity whereas engineering makes complexity manageable. For the most
> part, we're here to do the latter.
> 
> This matters because scholarly information can be messy and complex, and
> Web technology can be messy and complex, so we need to decide whose life
> we are to simplify and whose rug the complexity gets swept under.
> 
> Of the formats and solutions on offer out there, some focus on
> simplifying authoring (e.g. Authorea, Overleaf) while others try to
> establish interchange (e.g. JATS).
> 
> Of course, when you can have both there is no reason not to. For
> instance that is why there is no reason to use XML for SH: it would make
> authoring harder without making interchange any more reliable. But when
> authoring and interchange are at odds, we need to pick which wins. In my
> experience this drives many core decisions that then follow.
> 
> My position is strongly that what is needed first and foremost is an
> interchange format. There are several reasons for this.
> 
> [...]

I agree, but would like to make one of your semi-implicit points fully explicit.

While we should prioritize for interchange over manual authoring when there is a conflict, this should not mean that we should attach no importance to manual authoring. It is important, and we should make sure it is as nice as possible. Being secondary to interchange does not make it a non goal.

I would not like to end up in a situation where we have a format that works great for interchange but cannot practically be edited by hand.

This is not just about catering to people who like vim or emacs best as an authoring environment, but also about making sure the format remains inspectable, hackable and debuggable without (heavy) tools. Having humans form part of the ecosystem the format lives in is much healthier.

 - Florian

Received on Tuesday, 1 December 2015 05:14:18 UTC