[vorbis] Re: PROPOSAL: Sub-Tagging

[Cameron Simpson]

On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 10:29:38PM -0800, Jonathan Walther <krooger at debian.org> wrote:
| On Sat, Dec 08, 2001 at 03:53:25PM +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote:
| >On Sat, Dec 08, 2001 at 01:20:07AM +0100, Trick <gerry at c64.org> wrote:
| >| 1. Make it simple.
| >| 2. Make it (optionally!) detailed.
| >[...]
| >| Subtags are for detailed comments, and has the form:
| >| 	ARTIST=COMPOSER=Xz
| >| 	ARTIST=PERFORMER=Yz
| >
| >How about
| >
| >	ARTIST/COMPOSER=Xz
| >
| >There's just something about the two "=" that bugs me (and we can feed
| >Jonathan's UNIX preferences this way too:-).
| Why you are trying to create a hierarchy from non-hierarchical
| data is beyond me.

The data are nonhierachical, but the tag categories arguables _are_.

This is why I suggested recoding it with slashes - it moves the supposed
hierachy out of the tag value, which remains nonhierachical as you remark,
and into the tag name, which is merely a string - the fact that it's
got a slash in it has no effect upon the parsing code (which adhering
to your own spec, allows all sorts of characters - including spaces,
which I though odd - in tag names).

So codewise it's no different to PERFORMER, and to the human the string

        ARTIST/COMPOSER

is very suggestive and descriptive.

| You holler "keep it simple!"  then shove all
| the complexity into the parsing code and make it nonsensical for
| the eye to read in plain text.

Not if recast as above.

The problem with singular words (especially MEDIA and ADDENDUM) is that
they require the reader to have the whole spec in his/her head. By adding
a little more constructive categorisation to the tagname the user has
more context about the meaning.the reader to have the whole spec in
his/her head. By adding a little more constructive categorisation to
the tagname the user has more context about the meaning.

| I think you better explain why you think your method is "simpler" than
| the one currently in the proposal.  From a coders point of view, yours
| is hella more complex.

Just did. I agree that stuffing "VALUE=x" inside the tag _value_ is
asking for trouble - it's visually more noisy and certainly requires
parsing code to be written for what used to be flat scalars. So shift
it sideways into the tag name - no new parsing needed at all.

-- 
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743        cs at zip.com.au    http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/

It's amazing how much 'mature wisdom' resembles being too tired.
	- Lazarus Long

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