Re:Dublin Core's dirty little secret (2010)
by dsr_ on Saturday October 02, 2021 @09:21AM
(#28728349)
Have you noticed that search engines suck?
Citation formats are an attempt to end up with a search engine that doesn't suck. (They can do lots of other things along the way.)
Options:
1. Accept any format and try to turn it into your own internal representation. Problems: (a) your own representation is a citation format; (b) you need to write an infinite number of converters and hire an infinite number of trained people to work out the edge cases.
2. Accept a limited number of common formats. Problem: your search engine will not be useful for a majority of the corpus.
3. Convince everyone that your new citation format is unstoppable. Problems: (a) convincing everyone; (b) actually having that citation format cover, say, 99% of the cases; (c) XKCD#927 (Standards).
Dublin Core is/was a terrible attempt at a type 3 solution.
Citation formats are an attempt to end up with a search engine that doesn't suck. (They can do lots of other things along the way.)
Options:
1. Accept any format and try to turn it into your own internal representation. Problems: (a) your own representation is a citation format; (b) you need to write an infinite number of converters and hire an infinite number of trained people to work out the edge cases.
2. Accept a limited number of common formats. Problem: your search engine will not be useful for a majority of the corpus.
3. Convince everyone that your new citation format is unstoppable. Problems: (a) convincing everyone; (b) actually having that citation format cover, say, 99% of the cases; (c) XKCD#927 (Standards).
Dublin Core is/was a terrible attempt at a type 3 solution.