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- > I am exploring what it means to make HTML+ HyTime compatible. Elliot
- > Kimber (IBM) is helping me in this regard. It definitely looks an
- > important issue for the long term viability of HTML.
-
- I have the HyTime standard in front of me, and on first reading it is
- impressive in terms of what it tries to cover. Much of it is
- impenetrable, but I hope another pass through it will clarify my
- understanding a bit.
-
- But a word of caution. In at least two different places I have read
- that HyTime was designed for the INTERCHANGE of hypermedia data, and
- that it is not necessarily a good choice for an efficient run-time
- hypermedia format. Of course, it may well be that the overhead
- associated with HyTime is small compared with the network overhead for
- multimedia data transfer - but we should be aware of the problem.
-
- Making WWW HyTime-compatible does not bring any immediate benefits.
- Maybe it would make the job of client developers easier if there was a
- public-domain HyTime engine available - but until there is, it is
- difficult to argue for.
-
- Despite the above, I am keen that WWW should move in this direction.
- HyTime appears to provide a good deal of flexibility. You could simply
- view it as a collection of useful ideas with which to design hypermedia
- applications - and nothing is lost by building in HyTime compatability.
-
- Chris Adie Phone: +44 31 650 3363
- Edinburgh University Computing Service Fax: +44 31 662 4809
- University Library, George Square Email: C.J.Adie@edinburgh.ac.uk
- Edinburgh EH8 9LJ, United Kingdom
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