Balisage Paper: There is Nothing So Practical as a Good Theory
B. Tommie Usdin
President
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.
B. Tommie Usdin is President of Mulberry Technologies, Inc., a consultancy specializing in XML for textual documents. Ms. Usdin has been working with SGML since 1985 and has been a supporter of XML since 1996. She chairs the Balisage conference. Ms. Usdin has developed DTDs, Schemas, and XML/SGML application frameworks for applications in government and industry. Projects include reference materials in medicine, science, engineering, and law; semiconductor documentation; historical and archival materials. Distribution formats have included print books, magazines, and journals, and both web- and media-based electronic publications. She is co-chair of the NISO Z39-96, JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite Working Group and a member of the BITS Working Group and the NISO STS Standing Committee. You can read more about her at http://www.mulberrytech.com/people/usdin/index.html and see some of her photos on: flickr.
Abstract
There is nothing so practical as a Good Theory
has been the tag line for Balisage: The Markup Conference since it started in 2008. With this as the guiding principle behind a conference
about markup, Balisage has been a mix of case studies, updates on specifications, tutorials, discussions
of best (and sometimes worst) practice, conversations about how things should and/or
do work. We have explored markup; tools used to create, manipulate and store marked-up
content; markup-related information management principles; and formal and mathematical
models of markup. Some of our content is solidly grounded in reality and the practices
of daily production of documents, some can best be described as imaginative and fantastical.
Each of these realms informs the other, often in unpredictable but rewarding ways.