SDD document: SDD for DELTA experts

TDWG working group: Structure of Descriptive Data (SDD)

Synopsis

SDD is not simply DELTA expressed in xml. We try to deal with many problems the DELTA users and the developer team themselves (see M. J. Dallwitz, T. A. Paine, and E. J. Zurcher (1993 onwards, 1999, 2003) Proposed New Features for the DELTA System)) identified as deficits in DELTA. The SDD proposal is explicitly design to be used as a replacement for the DELTA standard. The following documents here are intended to help DELTA experts in writing software to migrate DELTA applications to SDD conforming applications.

Why not keep DELTA?

• Complexity of SDD versus DELTA (DELTA is not as simple as many believe)
• DELTA directives (problems with directives and need for a new general format)
• There's already a perfectly good descriptive data standard in DELTA - why not continue to use it? (from the primer faq)

Understanding SDD from a DELTA perspective

• Comparison of sections and subsections with DELTA features (which DELTA and SDD features are related?)
• Exporting DELTA data to SDD

Gregor Hagedorn; Vers. 1; 15. December 2003