From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Richard Lawrence Subject: Re: Citation syntax: a revised proposal Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 08:35:03 -0800 Message-ID: <87bnkf2tzb.fsf@berkeley.edu> References: <87k2zjnc0e.fsf@berkeley.edu> <87bnkvm8la.fsf@berkeley.edu> <87zj8co3se.fsf@berkeley.edu> <87ioezooi2.fsf@berkeley.edu> <87mw4bpaiu.fsf@nicolasgoaziou.fr> <8761aznpiq.fsf@berkeley.edu> <87twyjnh0r.fsf@nicolasgoaziou.fr> <87oaopx24e.fsf@berkeley.edu> <87k2zd4f3w.fsf@nicolasgoaziou.fr> <87egpkv8g9.fsf@berkeley.edu> <877fv6xfaq.fsf@gmail.com> <87h9u8jr8i.fsf@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:36609) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YRNtb-0008Jo-73 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 27 Feb 2015 11:36:12 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YRNtX-0003fx-QO for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 27 Feb 2015 11:36:11 -0500 Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:53262) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YRNtX-0003eK-FW for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 27 Feb 2015 11:36:07 -0500 Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YRNtT-0003ys-22 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 27 Feb 2015 17:36:03 +0100 Received: from c-67-169-117-151.hsd1.ca.comcast.net ([67.169.117.151]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 27 Feb 2015 17:36:03 +0100 Received: from richard.lawrence by c-67-169-117-151.hsd1.ca.comcast.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 27 Feb 2015 17:36:03 +0100 List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Hi Stefan, Stefan Nobis writes: > Aaron Ecay writes: > >> I count roughly 50 commands in sections 3.7.1 – 3.7.6 of the >> biblatex user’s manual (version 2.9a of 24/06/2014). Some of these >> are quite esoteric, of course, but they are all provided. > > There are many commands (and even more private commands are possible) > in order to help reproducing all the various citation styles out there. > > The critical question for org and org users is: How many different > citation commands are needed in a single document (or needed by a > single author within all her documents)? These are very different questions. I think we need to answer the second, since the syntax for citations will be common to all documents. > If no single author ever needs more than about a dozen different > commands (including variations like the genetive versions), the > [cite:subcommand ...] syntax should suffice. Yes, I don't disagree. But how do we know that no single author ever needs more than a dozen different types/commands, across all her documents, now and in the future? I for one do not feel comfortable making this judgment a priori. As Aaron said, it's an empirical question. >> By way of illustration, Biblatex (AFAICT) doesn’t provide a >> possessive citation command, which was mentioned by someone in this >> thread (or its predecessor) as a desideratum. I’d expect a savvy >> latex user to put in their preamble: > >> \newcommand{\citeposs}[1]{\citeauthor{#1}’s (\citeyear{#1})} > > This is what the subcommand is for. An author may define "poss" as a > subcommand and use [cite:poss ...]. Then all the nice gimmicks will > still work. If I understand correctly, Aaron and I have two worries about this approach. First, doing things this way potentially leads to a lot of redundancy in the code you have to write when defining subtypes, which is a maintenance hassle and an extra burden on users. Second, it means that an author who has to deal with a lot of `uncommon' commands has to remember a lot of subtype names, which are likely to be very similar, because they represent overlapping groups of options. Look at, e.g., the commands required in BibLaTeX to support citing multi-volume works. There are 24(!) of them, because every one of them is simply a multi-volume version of other combinations of options that BibLaTeX supports (multi-cite or not? parenthetical or in-text? footnoted or not? etc.). For my part, if I were citing multi-volume works a lot, I would appreciate being able to express all those options using orthogonal distinctions. Then I could just add {... :volume 2 ...} at the end of a citation that already expresses most of those options in the [cite: ...] part of the syntax. I would personally prefer *not* to have to write [cite/SUBTYPE: ...] and remember which, among those 24 command types, I need to use (and define) here. (Also, note that this syntax does not have a way to pass additional arguments like the volume, so it *can't* say "cite volume 2", even if with a subtype label it can say "cite this multi-volume work". Citing a volume in a multi-volume work seems like it might require some ugly hacking on the subtypes approach, but I have no idea how often people actually use such citations.) On the other hand, Tom says that he prefers the latter way of working, even if it requires a lot of subtypes. This is because it makes the subtype easy to find-and-replace when changing a document from one citation style to another. Also, it is simpler to write custom handlers that dispatch just on the subtype, rather than on a plist of options. So there are considerations on both sides. In the end, I prefer the [cite: ...]{:key val ...} syntax because: 1) it supports both styles of working (subtypes can be represented like `:type fvolcites') 2) it allows passing additional arguments (e.g., volume number) 3) something like this is needed anyway elsewhere in Org but I recognize there are some drawbacks to this over the simpler approach of subtype labels. Best, Richard