Dear critical edition experts,
the examples given in ConTeXt_Test_Footnote-ComplexMedieval.pdf and
the other posts are really
answering my questions. Everything seems to be already there and if
there were a Wiki on critical
editions I would perhaps have not even asked. Thanks a lot! If
anything else is planned by the
experts and you need input from a Sanskrit editor, please let me know.
As far as I see, no ConTeXt input format for critical editions is
needed, but since the topic is
being discussed -
I don’t see any future in developing a ConTeXt input format for
critical editions, for the following reasons:
1. Producing a print-only version (i.e. printed book) makes no sense
in 2022. This is not sustainable because
no-one will be able to take your edition and continue to work on it.
You have to provide a digital edition as research data.
2. This digital edition has to be in a standard format that is
sustainable at least for some time so it can be processed with
various types of software. TEI xml has become the de facto standard.
I must disagree. There is no print only version any more, so the first
question is: Is a pdf more
sustainable, or an online edition (based on html etc.)? Time will
tell, I guess. The same applies
to TEI based online editions by the way. No larger texts have been
edited by that method yet (in my
field), many projects are being worked on, but they tend not to be
finished, when the project
ends. Some of the people actually working with both TeX and XML-based
say that the latter
significantly slows down the collation process.
At least in Indology books and scans are still being used. Everyone is
talking about online
editions, data repositories etc., but the reality as I experience it
is not up to these
expectations. One of our great paleographical online tools was almost
lost, since there is no institutional
funding for updating those systems. Even finding a host for an online
edition can be (and is in our
case) a nightmare. In short, my solution is: printed version as in the
last centuries, possibly
additional online edition with a shorter life span and online
publication of research data. This
sounds great, but actually we are talking mainly about the collation
file, that is, the TeX-input
file. Not a big deal, since now this can be turned into xml by
ekdosis, and that's it. The mss
scans are prohibited from online publication by German copy right (no
Indian institution will grant
any rights).
Let me emphasize that I am not at all against these new possibilities.
I was part of an online
dictionary project (nws.uzi.uni-halle.de) that worked with TEI and
everything else, but after the
threat to close down Indology in Halle (the location of the
dictionary), I have to finance
occasional updates from our normal budget (the DFG had decreed that no
further funding for this
project was possible) and after my retirement - I have no great hopes
for a continuation of my
post - it might become quickly useless. As long as we have enough
nerds who can and will do
the necessary work privately, we are safe.
3. ConTeXt is not stable enough to provide such a standard format:
it is in development; what you code today may not be compilable in 2
(or 5 or 50) years.
Perhaps not, but I had much fun just checking out its possibilities
and have started to use it as the default.
4. However, ConTeXt is wonderful for processing xml.
Hence: keep the input source and the processing separate. Code in
TEI xml (or a subset of it) and develop a ConTeXt stylesheet to
process it.
I am used to TeX-code, and so I'd rather stick to that and let ekdosis
do the conversion,
if necessary. But in publication practice in my field, most of this is
just for private
entertainment. Almost all publishers still expect a Word file, so the
tool of choice
is pandoc to downgrade from TeX to docx. Sorry to end on this depressing note.
Best
Jürgen
---
Prof. Dr. Juergen Hanneder
Philipps-Universitaet Marburg
FG Indologie u. Tibetologie
Deutschhausstr.12
35032 Marburg
Germany
Tel. 0049-6421-28-24930
hanne...@staff.uni-marburg.de
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