Re: anchor awareness (was Re: Richer & richer semantics?)

At 23:55 22/12/96 -0500, Steven R. Newcomb wrote:
>(Tim Bray:)
>
>> Probe 1:
>> 
>> 1. Web links contain lots of ends that don't know they are anchors, thus
>> 2. if we require all anchors to be self-aware, we won't be able to subsume 
>>    the current Web mechanisms.
>
>I don't understand how proposition 2 follows. .

Current Web practices should not necessarily be the guide to XML practice.
For example, what I as a Web user would love is a mechanism whereby I could
ask the owner of a page I have pointed to for some reason not to delete,
move or update the file without letting me know. This isn't anchor
self-awareness as described by Steve Newcombe but is a form of link
awareness that allows for good XML link management by indirection. Look at
how useful the facility offered by Alta Vista to identify pages that point
to your pages is. What XML needs is a simple mechanism for registering the
fact that some link has identified part of one of your files as one of its
anchors. If this was a compulsory feature of XML it would, in itself, go a
long way in sorting out Ralph's vital copyright protection points.

(We would probably need to add some messages to the HTTP header to do this
though, but as this is an area being actively discussed at present this
should not be too hard to arrange.)


Happy Christmas one and all

Martin Bryan
----
Martin Bryan, The SGML Centre, Churchdown, Glos. GL3 2PU, UK 
Phone/Fax: +44 1452 714029   WWW home page: http://www.u-net.com/~sgml/

Received on Tuesday, 24 December 1996 06:41:17 UTC