Re: Library data is expressed primarily as text strings

I think "natural language" is a good choice of term.  I struggled a bit with a reply but kept getting tangled up in definitions.  "natural language" cuts through the confusion and tangle for me.  Others?


Peter


On Sep 6, 2011, at 12:29 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
> In other environments I have included the concept of "natural  
> language" to distinguish between these concepts. For most non-IT  
> people, "text" means "in a human language", and "text string" just  
> means a bit of human language. We refer to a book or article as being  
> "text." If I wish to refer to "strings" in the IT sense, I would say  
> "alphanumeric strings" or something of that nature.
> 
> When I look up definitions of text I don't see anything that would  
> equate the term "text" with a URI. Even the definition of "formatted  
> text" [1] doesn't equate it with non-language strings.
> 
> So maybe the problem here is with the use of "text strings" rather  
> than "text." Library data is primarily expressed as text -- that is,  
> as human language. The few uses of formatted data are either numeric  
> data (used mainly for cartographic materials) and codes (language  
> codes, codes for locations, etc.)
> 
> kc
> 
> 
> Quoting Carlo Meghini <carlo.meghini@isti.cnr.it>:
> 
>> Corrected version of my previous message, apologies.
>> 
>> Very interesting debate indeed.
>> 
>> I am not sure I have followed all the developments, but here it  
>> seems to me that the problem is NOT the "text string" per sé. A URI  
>> (in its abstract syntax) is in fact a text string, and so is an  
>> ISBN. The difference between a URI and any other type of string is  
>> that a URI has a meaning associated to it, and this meaning allows  
>> an agent (for instance a piece of software), who knows there is a  
>> URI in a certain place, to do something with the URI (whether  
>> display it nicely or dereference it and get back a representation).  
>> So, a text string is fine, as long as the string conforms to a  
>> syntax with an associated semantics.
>> 
>> Carlo
>> 
>> On Sep 5, 2011, at 11:46 PM, Tom Baker wrote:
>> 
>>> On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 11:41:51PM +0200, Antoine Isaac wrote:
>>>>>> OK, I've tried it in
>>>>>> http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/wiki/index.php?title=Draft_issues_page_take2&diff=6212&oldid=6141
>>>>>> (be careful, this diff includes quite some other changes,  
>>>>>> including a couple by Tom...)
>>>>> 
>>>>> This pulls the two points together into one coherent point
>>>>> quite efficiently.  Nicely done!
>>>>> 
>>>>> One minor stylistic suggestion:
>>>>> 
>>>>>  s/especially, changes/in particular, that changes/
>>>> 
>>>> This reminds me too much of not elegant French constructions, I  
>>>> could not have thought of that :-)
>>>> But if you think that's alright, feel free to implement it!
>>> 
>>> DONE [1]...
>>> 
>>> [1]  
>>> http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/wiki/index.php?title=Draft_issues_page_take2&diff=6213&oldid=6212

-- 
Peter Murray         Peter.Murray@lyrasis.org        tel:+1-678-235-2955                 
Ass't Director, Technology Services Development   http://dltj.org/about/
LYRASIS   --    Great Libraries. Strong Communities. Innovative Answers.
The Disruptive Library Technology Jester                http://dltj.org/ 
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Received on Tuesday, 6 September 2011 17:12:10 UTC