TAPRegExt erratum, Identifiers for Obscore

[Mark Taylor]

On Wed, 11 Dec 2013, Paul Harrison wrote:

> 
> On 2013-12 -11, at 17:35, Mark Taylor <m.b.taylor at bristol.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 11 Dec 2013, Paul Harrison wrote:
> > 
> >> Personally I think that it was a retrograde step to move from HTML to PDF as the mandated IVOA format, as PDF encourages people to take a local copy of the document (and consequently possibly keep referring to an out of date version) - if HTML were the only format for these documents (which is what W3C do) then the “latest” version of the document is always the one retrieved by the URL, and these naming issues become less important.
> > 
> > By my reading of the document that Omar already quoted
> > (http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/#Errata), your supposition about
> > what the W3C does is incorrect.
> > 
> >   "Since the errata page changes over time but a specific version of
> >    a Recommendation does not, place the errata page outside of the /TR
> >    hierarchy. There is an expectation that documents in the "TR zone"
> >    will not evolve over time.”
> > 
> 
> What I meant was that because the link is live you naturally navigate to the link and see the live link to the errata - all easier to achieve in HTML than PDF. In addition, because the PDF might be downloaded and kept until a future time, then does it need an errata link just in case, even when there are none at the time of writing? You cannot retrofit the errata link to a file on someone’s hard drive.
> 
> What I meant about names is that it is easier for two different URLs to point to the same place 
> e.g.
> 
> http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/
> 
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/REC-xhtml-basic-20101123/
> 
> but once the document lives as PDF outside the web server, you cannot do this trick. Anyway W3C say that where formats other than HTML are available they are non-normative - so it is clear if you really what the definitive answer you should look online.
> 
> Also it is not difficult to find an example where W3C have altered their live document on-line
> 
> http://www.w3.org/TR/xml11/
> 
> So the point is about being pragmatic and doing the things that are most likely to point people to the latest correct version with least confusion - even if that requires bending the rules a little.
> 
> I think that the W3C do it pretty well although it might be nicer if the original document did have some sort of marker with a link  into the errata at the points where there the changes occur.
> 
> > Actually, one reason that I prefer PDF over HTML for this purpose is
> > just that - it conveys the impression that the document is fixed and
> > will not alter.
> 
> but the point of this thread is when it does change ;-).

OK - good points.  I wasn't aware of the two revisions of XML 1.1.
Personally though I remain nervous about published numbered
Recommendation documents, which have up till now in the IVOA always
been final, becoming subject to change.

--
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-9288776  http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/