On 8/14/06, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
I think the absolute worst part of this is references.
Firstly, if you spot a typo in a reference, the instinct is to click the "edit" link for the References section. But then all you see is:
== References == <references/>
Yes.
The other thing is that if you spot a typo in the middle of a paragraph which has inline references in every sentence, it is *extremely* hard to find that typo because all the inline references distract. You look somewhere and you don't even know if you're looking at the paragraph or the inside of a <ref> tag.
Agreed again. And you haven't even mentionde the problem of multiply-used footnotes.
To me this says that the needs of the creator of the footnote, and the needs of the future maintainer of the footnote are in direct conflict.
If the person designing the references syntax had thought about this a bit more, these severe problems should have been apparent to them. A much more sensible thing would be to use [1], [2] etc. in the text, and define the references in the place where they are actually displayed -- the References section. (Duh.)
We used to have a system (or 3) like that. It was crap. Hard numbering footnotes is an awful solution.
The only thing I can think of that would work is that a person can add a footnote like this:
Sometext<ref> a reference in the good old style</ref>...some more text.
...which the software would actually move down to the references section.
Sometext<ref name="ref1"/>...some more text. ... <references> <ref name="ref1">a reference in the good old style</ref> </references>
Easy on the writer, easy on the maintainer. And totally confusing for aynone who witnesses the transition.
Steve