Re: [edict-jmdict] <xref> tags without a destination or with too many destinations

[Jim Breen <jimbreen@*********>]

On 4 November 2010 23:24, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 3:30 PM, Stuart McGraw <smcg4191@frii.com> wrote:
>> referring to one, and when the other.  When thinking about this
>> for the JMdictDB UI, I thought one way might be simply to prefix
>> the Id with an "s", so one might see something like
>>
>> ○:
>>  1. (s2): circle (sometimes used for zero)
>>  2. (s1): 'correct' (when marking)
>
> If I was designing a JMdict UI, I'd never expose these numbers
> normally, since it's an implementation detail.  I'd only show the
> current ordinal position, and things like submitting xref changes
> would interface with the user in terms of the ordinal, mapping it to
> and from the sense ID in the background.  I'd do that regardless of
> whether the numbers are one digit or six.  Showing internal,
> out-of-order IDs to the user would just be confusing, and UI clutter.

That worries me a bit. Some entries have more than 10 senses. Without having
actual sense id's showing in the GUI, anyone wanting to establish or
amend and xref to one of them is left with having to count down a list and
stating an exref is the nth. Or am I missing the point?

Perhaps if you could show how such a GUI could work?

> Consider the case of a website or application that imports the XML to
> its own database.  Later on, you're going to want to update that
> database with JMdict's changes since you first imported.  Database
> imports should be in-place.  You usually don't want to wipe out large
> blocks of your database and import stuff from scratch, since you may
> have external data now pointing at the imported data (in addition to
> internal references via xref).

Yes, such an import should only be of changed entries. That's why
sense id's decoupled from their display order are important.

Jim

-- 
Jim Breen
Adjunct Snr Research Fellow, Clayton School of IT, Monash University
Vice-president: Hawthorn Rowing Club, Treasurer: Japanese Studies Centre
Graduate student: Language Technology Group, University of Melbourne