Quote:
Originally Posted by calvin-c
Question: who's doing the tagging? As a programmer I see a strong analogy between styles & objects (as in object oriented programming). Both take a long time to develop so they work properly in all situations-and it's much easier to just 'apply consistent rules' every time you need to do whatever it is the object (or style) would do.
But programmers not only work in teams, but programs are also passed along from one programmer to the next. (That is, if I leave this job the programs I wrote will remain-and it'll be up to the next programmer to make any changes that are needed.) So something I've also learned is that rules are only applied consistently when there's only one person applying them. Introduce more people into the process and you get inconsistent application of rules.
Converting to objects was hard, but worthwhile. The rules are now embedded in the objects & it no longer matters who uses the objects-the rules are now applied consistently. I suspect the same would be true of tagging. For a single-person operation, rules can be applied consistently & don't require the effort needed to properly develop styles. But if the process has different people applying the tags, then I suspect styles would give the best results.
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Based on what you wrote, it seems like styles (for word processing) correspond to objects (for programming). If so, this could be very usable as long as there are some clear, simple, and consistent rules are established when formatting the ebook.
An ebook style guide that everyone agrees to follow would help to make this a reality. Once it becomes a firmly established tradition, that will provide an incentive for ebook formatters to follow that tradition since ebooks that don't follow that format will seem to look odd (nothing actually wrong, but it looks different that what has come to be expected). It is much like form that printed books currently take is the result of centuries of experience in formatting books.
One of the things that I like about HTML as an ebook format is that it is long established and can be easily mastered after only a small amount of study. The addition of CSS provides formatting control that HTML lacks. A combination of the two should be able to provide all of the formatting needed for an ebook.