NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/comp/text/sgml/1297

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-12 | 2.5 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!vnet.ibm.com
From: [e-mail] (Wayne L. Wohler)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 10:10:46 MST
Newsgroups: comp.text.sgml
Subject: Useful SGML Information and more FrameBuilder
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not those of IBM
News-Software: Usenet 3.1
Lines: 40

ANOTHER USEFUL SGML INFORMATION DEFINITION
Dr. Goldfarb mentioned to me offline that the HyTime properties found in
the HyTime standard are another "public" definition of useful SGML
information.  It would be an interesting exercise to build a matrix of
all the public definitions and the types of information they allow
access to.  It would also be interesting to add to this matrix the
information that the products that are available support access to
(although this will be a very subjective judgement in some cases).
Anyone willing to do this and publish the result?

FRAMEBUILDER
<tongue-in-cheek>I must confess some disappointment that no one took me
to task for my comments on FrameBuilder.</>  I think the SGML technical
community has a tendency to try to eat its young before the "child" has
a chance to grow to maturity.  I recall complaints similar those being
leveled at FrameBuilder when other products were first released;
products that have grown in function and feature coverage.  I haven't
seen written claims that FrameBuilder is fully conforming to the SGML
standard, it sounds as if others have (I wouldn't count the white paper
since that talks about future directions, Frame may quite correctly
claim that they haven't fully implemented their strategy as articulated
there).  If Frame did claim conformance, then they are wrong.

On the other hand, with a little ingenuity, an application designer can
go a long way toward supporting many of the parts of SGML that are not
supported by name in the product.  Just to give another example,
external entities containing SGML data may be supported using empty
components to mark the limits of the entity.  The author may enter them,
delete them, etc. as long as they are dealt with as a pair and nest
properly.  Some application code can be written to enforce this using
the Frame API.  The import can create them and the export can use them
to create the files.  I know its a lot of work but it can, and probably
will, be done.

Wayne L. Wohler                   Internet:  [e-mail]
Dept G82/910M                     IBMMAIL:   USIB29WX@IBMMAIL
Publishing Solutions Development             Phone: [phone]
IBM Corporation
Boulder, Colorado  80301-9191