¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 With spring break now over, we’re focused on prioritizing all the work required to get a minimum viable product ready by the end of the semester. In our last class prior to the break, Hannah and Jeremy offered some helpful feedback on end/line as it exists now. Coming from a computer science background, Hannah provided a useful non-humanistic perspective. More specifically, she challenged us to think about how best to explain TEI to those with limited TEI or even encoding experience. Jeremy, meanwhile, provided a deeper humanities perspective and encouraged us to validate encodings against the actual TEI DTD and distinguish XML tags through something like highlight.js. We’ll add these items to our development to-do list, along with a host of back-end (e.g. SSL configuration) and front-end (e.g. 404 and 500 error pages) tasks that Brian and Greg have planned.

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Lisa also pushed us to think more deeply about the humanistic purpose of this project. Should end/line only teach users how to encode in TEI XML or should it force them to rethink how they read poetry? This seems like a far more complicated task than rethinking our information architecture to guide novice encoders or building in some JavaScript to highlight XML tags. Yet such thinking also seems necessary as we prepare to write an NEH grant application. In fact, we can begin to see how end/line could mine data to reveal the most commonly used, and most commonly abused, tags. Furthermore, end/line might go beyond validating encodings and also analyze them, asking encoders why they use certain tags in certain ways. That type of functionality, however, remains out-of-scope for this project. (Apps that analyze writing, in sometimes offbeat ways, do exist: see Hemingway Editor, Nitpicker, and write-good for some examples. Perhaps we could adopt this type of thinking for encoding?)

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 In the coming couple of weeks, we expect even more feedback as beta testing commences. Iuri has generated a lot of interest for end/line and has compiled an “invitation to test” letter and a comprehensive feedback form. It will be exciting to see what those outside of our team and outside of CUNY think about the app.