Meta-question about FLEx

[Post, Mark]

Lovely analogy. Can I add my two cents?

Let's imagine we're living not in a house, but rather what is in the US called a trailer park (I'm not sure what these are called in other parts of the world, or if they even exist). This seems to me to more closely resemble the linguist's world of computing. We start with a humble trailer, basically a box to hang one's hat in, then somebody comes along and tacks on a front porch, someone else leaves us an LPG stove that we stick onto the side somewhere, and we also manage to build a shed which doubles as a garage/carport (fits most incoming vehicles!). Sure, we have to walk across the yard to use the outhouse and that's no fun in the rain, but beggars can't be choosers. 

Now someone comes along and builds a beautiful, gleaming structure across the road and tells us that it's *for us* - we can come and live here for free! "Wow!" we think, "that's really something! Must be great inside!" But somehow, it doesn't feel very homey. Instead of sofas, it has rows of benches that look kind of like...pews. And the food pantry kind of looks, I don't know - like an altar or something.  And although we're allowed to live there, for some reason we're not given the keys. And there's this sort of...atmosphere there, it feels like you always have to do things a particular way, and there's a lot of rooms whose function you don't really understand, it...almost seems as if it was designed for someone who has a different sort of purpose...

Well, we can either stay there or go back to the trailer park, of course, nobody's forcing anything on anyone. But there's nothing wrong with yearning for the house we've always wanted. After all, some people in the world have them, it's not like they don't exist. But, it doesn't look like we've figured out how to get there yet.

Cheers,

Mark

---
Mark W. Post, PhD
Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Anthropological Linguistics
The Cairns Institute
James Cook University
Smithfield, QLD 4878
Australia

O: +61-7-4042-1898
M: +61-432619366 
E: markwpost at gmail.com
W: http://jamescook.academia.edu/MarkWPost


-----Original Message-----
From: r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au [mailto:r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au] On Behalf Of Margaret Carew
Sent: Thursday, 13 October 2011 10:36 AM
To: Claire Bowern; Peter Austin
Cc: r-n-l-d
Subject: RE: Meta-question about FLEx

However, when building a house, often it is chaos: variations to the contract, the client fighting with the builder or the architect, sometimes ineptness on the part of the trades, materials and time go way over budget etc etc. It would be good if houses came fully formed, with the keys to the front door, but the real challenges lie in the building of them.


-----Original Message-----
From: r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au on behalf of Claire Bowern
Sent: Wed 12/10/2011 21:56
To: Peter Austin
Cc: r-n-l-d
Subject: Re: Meta-question about FLEx
 
Perhaps a better analogy is when builders build a house, they usually put the kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, etc, in the same structure. In my house, for example, it is possible to get from kitchen to living room to bedroom without going outside or taking public transport.
Claire

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 3:23 AM, Peter Austin <pa2 at soas.ac.uk> wrote:

> Claire
>
> Why would anyone expect that there would be an "ideal software tool 
> for language description"? If you want to build a house you need an 
> architect/designer, engineer, carpenter, plumber, electrician etc., 
> all of whom have a toolkit for carrying out particular tasks. What 
> linguists Want to do, and hence need is equally complex it seems to 
> me: concepts/designs and tools for data modelling, data management, 
> linguistic and non-linguistic analysis, publishing, archiving and 
> mobilisation. How could one magic bullet for all this exist?
>
> Things like Flex (and it's ancestors like CELLAR) just demonstrate how 
> problematic the search for the holy grail is.
>
> Peter
>
>
> On Wednesday, 12 October 2011, Claire Bowern <clairebowern at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Given that we're talking about FLEx, I have a more general question 
> > for
> list members. FLEx is billed by those who like it as the new standard 
> for language description software. But at the same time, this program 
> seems to fly in the face of many of the ideals for language 
> description software that fieldwork technologists have been 
> advocating. I'm thinking of articles like Bird and Simons' "7 dimensions of portability for language documentation".
> Flex is not interoperable, it's not based on open source, it doesn't 
> preserve material on import (e.g. time-alignment), it's impossible to 
> use collaboratively, and it builds the descriptive model into the 
> software in the name of 'ease of use for non-linguists', so it's not 
> theory-netural (whatever that means anyway).
> > Does this mean that we've just given up on goals like 
> > interoperability,
> open access and collaboration? Or are we recognizing that the ideal 
> software tool for language description just doesn't exist, and FLEx 
> optimizes enough of the process that we are willing to live without 
> the more abstract and intangible goals like interoperability?
> > Claire
> >
> >
> >
> > On Oct 11, 2011, at 12:06 PM, John Hatton wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Jeff,
> >>
> >> You'll be wanting to join the FLEx google group for most of your
> questions.  You can also search the large archives of past discussions 
> there.
> >>
> >> Beth answered your 1st question, I'll take a swing at the second:
> >>
> >> >2) Is there a way to import a vocabulary list in XML into FLEx?
> >>
> >> You'll need to get it into the xml format which FLEx can import.
>  Specifically, FLEx imports LIFT xml (Lexical Interchange FormaT).
>  Depending on your format, that could be as easy as a series of 
> find/replace operations in some text editor.
> >>
> >> Now, back to the interlinear text issue. as Beth said, the 
> >> ELAN->FLEx
> feature is only in the alpha version of SayMore (as are the 
> transcription and oral annotation features).  If you'd like to be a 
> tester for that, let me know.  FLEx can currently only import two 
> lines: the base line and the free translation.  That's fine if your 
> using SayMore or ELAN to just do transcription and translation, but if 
> you've glossed words, for example, it can't currently import those 
> glosses.  As Beth said, the FLEx team would appreciate hearing of your needs.
> >>
> >> John Hatton
> >> SIL International Language Software Development, PALASO, and SIL 
> >> Papua
> New Guinea
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au [mailto:r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au] On 
> >> Behalf
> Of Jeff Siegel
> >> Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 4:06 AM
> >> To: r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au
> >> Subject: Questions about importing into FLEx
> >>
> >> Dear Colleagues,
> >>
> >> I'm a newcomer FLEx and was wondering if anyone can answer these 
> >> basic
> questions:
> >>
> >> 1) What is the method of importing transcribed texts from Elan into
> FLEx?
> >>
> >> 2) Is there a way to import a vocabulary list in XML into FLEx?
> >>
> >> Many thanks,
> >>
> >> Jeff Siegel
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
> --
> Prof Peter K. Austin
> Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics Director, Endangered 
> Languages Academic Programme PhD Convenor Department of Linguistics, 
> SOAS Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square London WC1H 0XG United Kingdom
>
> web: http://www.hrelp.org/aboutus/staff/index.php?cd=pa
>