Re: EDUML sample

[Bruno Vernier <vernier@vc.bc.ca>]

On Thu, Dec 10, 1998 at 10:05:45PM -0500, Duane Morin wrote:
> >  <snail> post office address goes here </snail>
> >  <fax> fax number </fax>
> >  <phone> phone number </phone>
> >  <email> postmaster@vc.bc.ca </email>
> 
> Perhaps group all contact-info together (or call it address)?  That way parsers
> could just grab that block and try a variety of contact methods, rather than
> having to keep the whole file around to parse.

I am really happy to see some technical feedback on EDUML :-)  
First of all, I am all for reduction of the number of tags to a bare
minimum, keeping the tag labels as small yet readable as possible, and
avoiding spliting hairs.  The reason I suggest a separation of these contact
methods is that will allow automatic creation of phone lists (which the
teachers I work with need) as well as automatic creation of webpage links to
student portfolios (which Info Tech teachers I work with need) and in case
students are flagged as wanting their lessons sent by fax, automatic sending
of lessons (or email) by fax number.  

Now I know that a good parser can isolate these elements from a general
address tag  either with attributes 

<ADDRESS phone="xxxxxx" fax="xxxxx" email="xxxxx" snail="xxxx" uri="xxxx">

or with keywords in non-tag form within the tag (with marked fields):

<ADDRESS>
 address: xxxx
 phone: xxxx  fax: xxxx
 email: xxxx  uri: xxxx
 </ADDRESS>

or with more effort (but way less lines) from a pot-pourri like:

<ADDRESS> address  123-1231243 asdf@asdf.asdf http://www.what.org </ADDRESS>
 
Have I missed any other options?  From what I have studied about XML, the
recommended approach is to use separate tags for separate functionality,
though.  What do you think?

Bruno