Re: Anchor terminology

I find it puzzling that the XHL draft has replaced
the HyTime terminology "contextual link" and "independent
link" -- about which to my knowledge nobody has complained --
in favor of the _de novo_ "inline link" and "out-of-line link",
yet it retains the terms "anchor" and "link end",
which nobody seems to like.

At the risk of introducing yet another set of terms
that half the world will find objectionable (hyperlink
terminology being an even more contentious issue than
object-oriented terminology), may I suggest "reference"
for what XHL calls a "link end", and "referent" for
what it calls an "anchor"?  These seem to me more
intuitive (and the phrase "reference role" is nicely
alliterative, plus easier to pronounce than "anchor role"
which it would replace).

"Reference" and "referent" no doubt already have an
established meaning in some other context (probably OOP),
but other than that I can't think of any drawbacks...



--Joe English

  jenglish@crl.com

Received on Tuesday, 28 January 1997 14:31:44 UTC