On the Expressive Power of Declarative Constructs in Interactive Document Scripts

Dear XFormsUsersvand Steven ,


As an example it is mentioned how XForms is made to facilitate mappings
(among others Steven Pamberton, "Declarative Applications" mentioned
above): I finded what is supposedly an interesting article "Maps for the
Future" by C D'Allessandro-Scarpari discussing a book by J. Pickeks, "A
History of Spaces. Cartographic reason, mapping and the geo-coded world",
2003.

Beginning by reasoning such a relation between Geography, geographers, and
map --thus existing research and reflections on map-- D'Alessandro-Scarpari
identified a uniqe perspective proposed by the book which was among others
an investigation about spatial consequences of technological changes.

The book was said about the processes of map-making and map-using issues.
The book interpret geography as an action of delimitation constructing
objects: the technical, social, and spatial changes affecting
cartographies, express the need for such discourses on ethics of practices
and cartographic goals.

To the present situation named globalization, the book concerned with the
matter of mapping the world at any scale, rethinking theory and methods of
"globalized sites" The book suggested a way to work on a kind of
cartography:

"For the author the technology is just an input for future changes:
map-making and map-using processes are more deeply transformed by the
social and spatial dynamics".

Such a concern given to the collectives involved in every particular space:
a geography of collectives...

https://www.espacestemps.net/articles/maps-for-the-future/



Maps for the future.John Pickles, *A History of Spaces. Cartographic
reason, mapping and the geo-coded world*, 2003.Cristina
D’Alessandro-Scarpari
<https://www.espacestemps.net/auteurs/cristina-drsquoalessandro-scarpari/>

[image: Image1]Geographers’ relations with maps have a long story of
attraction and repulsion. The map has always fascinated Geographers (even
before the institutionalization of the discipline) as a powerful tool, able
to demarcate territories, to produce different visions of them and to
transform them by the actions they may cause or influence. Sometimes for
strategic reasons Geographers have also denigrated cartography as a
secondary and technical form of knowledge, a tool merely for understanding
and representing spaces. At the present time the production of maps is
becoming at the same time easier (because of the technological advances
available today for making maps) and more complex (because of the high
complexity of spatial contemporary dynamics). Anyone can buy software and
make his/her own maps and those maps can be constantly updated. If one can
visualize them from different points of view (adding or removing layers of
data and changing combinations); then the delineated territories are not as
stable as they were in the past. Spaces, networks and borders are submitted
to multiple rapid social processes at different scales and maps show their
limits representing this complexity.

The existing research and reflections about maps and cartography can
roughly be divided into two groups. On one hand, is the historical enquiry
about the role of maps: David Woodward, Franco Farinelli and Christian
Jacob are three notable examples of this historical effort. On the other
hand, there are major contributions concerned by the graphic semiology and
semiotic of maps: Emanuela Casti or Jacques Bertin contributed to the
explanations of what maps show and how they produce spatial knowledge. In a
different way both these traditions are interested in the links between
maps and politics at the local, national or international levels. The
originality of this book is certainly not in underlining the central role
played by maps in building empires: nevertheless, *A History of Spaces*brings
something unquestionably new in the way geographers study maps and the
processes of map-making and map-using. Novelties exist on at least three
levels: the most visible aspect is the capacity to cross a geographical
analysis with a deep philosophical background; John Pickles does not limit
his views to conventional mapping but is concerned also with cyber-maps and
digital spatial representations; lastly the author suggests an exciting
intellectual and scientific challenge for future practices of mapping.

A diversity of approaches in his intellectual background gives Pickles a
unique perspective by combining a deep philosophical interest, an opening
to Western European classical knowledge and to contemporary scientific
productions, a geographical approach to globalization issues and also to
post-communist fragmentation in Eastern Europe, environmental concerns,
African experience and an investigation of spatial consequences of
technological changes. John Pickles can be broadly defined as a cultural
and social geographer, interested in political and economic processes
investing territories and places, with an approach certainly influenced by
Lefebvre. Philosophically he is close to the phenomenology of Althusser but
also to Deleuze.

*A History of Spaces* is certainly about geography and maps, but it is
mainly a questioning of the processes of map-making and of map-using
issues, the dynamics of production being more important than the result
itself. If one may be tempted to state that the histories of spaces are
limited in this book, then the social and spatial aspects linked to
cartography are constantly present. The text is divided into five parts.
After an introduction, the second part focuses on the deconstruction of
maps, in a double technical and social sense: contesting the crisis of
representation it criticizes cartographic reason and taking into account
the social practices it develops a situated pragmatic. The third part is
about mapping and political territories in the modern period and it
introduces the following part, about cyber-empires in the contemporary
digital maps. The last part, the fifth, discusses the counter-mapping and
the maps of future.

The 233 pages of this book present an important number of figures, 46 black
and white illustrations more precisely. But contrary to what one can expect
in a book about mapping and spaces, the majority of these figures are
drawings (24). With the reproduction of recent and old maps one is able to
find also paintings and pictures. In spite of the variety of illustrations
and of their importance in the text, there is no color in the book, except
for the monochromatic blue cover, the image representing a French painting
showing the attempt to adjust the technique of perspective. Maps, then, are
not always the most efficient tool for representing spaces.

What is geography if it is not the drawing and interpreting of a line? This
is the question developed as an introduction in Part I. From its Greek
etymology, *geo-graphy* indicates the drawing of the world, but for the
author this action of delimitation creates new objects. Following Jean
Baudrillard, for Pickles (from Part I and throughout the entire book) maps
precede territory; they inscribe boundaries and construct objects that in
turn become our realities: instead of representing the territory, they
produce it. Map-making and map-using are described as individual and social
processes at the same time: the production of maps is not only a technical
act, but above all an interpretative action, in which the result conveys
also the author’s intentions, conditions and values. Nevertheless, maps are
made because of the needs of particular social situations, to fulfil a
particular action (Part III gives some political and economic examples).

From this perspective the technical, social and spatial changes affecting
cartography cannot be reduced to the supposed ‘crisis of representation’.
This expression (questioned in Part II) is for the author a way to express
the need for a debate about the ethics of practices and cartographic goals.
As the crisis of representation develops, the recent technological
innovations are more a way to interrogate future social transformations
than an object of study. New technologies of mapping and new uses for maps
have accompanied the reworking and recoding of social life. Consumers for
these new products and practices have been produced and new mapping
metaphors have been deployed to promote the penetration of these
technologies into everyday life. With imaging and visualizing technologies,
the goal of analytical abstraction and purification can be accomplished in
ways that create abstract spaces of transparent objects.

We have the tools for rendering the world-as-picture in the 21st century,
but the territories, submitted to globalization, are not as easily marked
and separated as in the past. Globalization challenges how we map the world
at any scale, but particularly it calls for rethinking theory and methods
about ‘globalized sites’. John Pickles notices that we need new
cartographies, carrying new pragmatics of map-making and map using. These
new cartographies might produce mappings that speak their situated and
selective interests and that record their metadata and political
commitments. But these cartographies also need a new openness for producing
dialectical, dynamic and metaphorical images; they must be able to
integrate rhizomatic spaces (rhizome being used according to Deleuze and
Guattari), between local and global, concrete and abstract (Deleuze and
Guattari, 1983), by the process that Felix Guattari calls the fabrication
of individual and collective assemblages of enunciation.

At the end of the book Pickles suggests an interesting way to work on a new
kind of cartography. ‘It may be possible to develop new cartographies and
geographies only by changing the way we think about the cartographies we
have’ (p. 194). For the author the technology is just an input for future
changes: map-making and map-using processes are more deeply transformed by
the social and spatial dynamics. Isn’t that an interesting lesson for the
actual gis concerns about production, use and limits of this technology’

But the entire book may also be interpreted as an invitation to geographers
to shift their gaze from the gis technology to the collectives involved in
every particular case. ‘These collectives are all alike, as I have said, in
that they distribute both what will later, after stabilization, become
elements of Nature and elements of the social world. No one has ever heard
of a collective that did not mobilize heaven and earth in its composition,
along with bodies and souls, property and laws, gods and ancestors, powers
and beliefs, beasts and fictional beings’ (Latour, 1993, p. 107). gis permit
to visualize and study collectives of humans and non-humans: for the writer
of these lines the new geographies mentioned by Pickles are precisely the
geography of these collectives (linked to the new cartographies). This
alternative mapping, or counter-mapping, is a public participation in the
mapping process, where the public is not only human, but constituted by
collectives.



Regard,
Guntur Wiseno Putra

Pada Selasa, 15 Oktober 2019, Steven Pemberton <steven.pemberton@cwi.nl>
menulis:

> The word 'model' in XForms refers back to the model-view-controller (MVC)
> paradigm that originally appeared in Smalltalk. However, in XForms the idea
> is somewhat more generalised: in MVC the relationship between model and
> view is one-way (from the model to the view) and the controller is
> responsible for the flow in the other direction. In XForms the relationship
> is two-way, with constraints and invariants achieving much of what the
> controller would have been needed for, although Events and Actions allow
> you to add your own effects where they are not supplied automatically by
> the system.
>
> In retrospect, the word Form might have been a good choice instead of
> Model, in the sense of Form and Content.
>
> Steven
>
>
> On Mon, 14 Oct 2019 19:19:53 +0200, Guntur Wiseno Putra <gsenopu@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Dear XFormsUsers and Steven,
>
>
>
> It may be inspiring:
>
> So it is about "model"...? as "the word is used in so many different ways
> in common parlance as well as in academia" (Patterson, Z.,  "Model", 2008:
> discussing the word in relation with social science) ...?
>
> https://www.espacestemps.net/articles/model/
>
> Until the MarkupUK 2019 it is still said that the components of XForms are
> the model and the human interface (Steven Pemberton, "Declarative
> Applications").
>
> https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/Talks/2019/06-07-markup/
>
> Regard,
> Guntur Wiseno Putra
>
> Pada Rabu, 09 Oktober 2019, Guntur Wiseno Putra <gsenopu@gmail.com>
> menulis:
>
>> Dear XForms Users & Steven,
>>
>> To share what may be inspiring (May we say what are below...?):
>>
>> Somewhere a city of networks, those networks of languages, ones learn on
>> how to navigate it, how to work it out by such a strategic spatial
>> planning: thus there is a multiplanar methodology...
>>
>> https://www.espacestemps.net/en/articles/strategic-navigation/
>>
>>
>> Regard,
>> Guntur Wiseno Putra
>>
>> Pada Rabu, 02 Oktober 2019, Guntur Wiseno Putra <gsenopu@gmail.com>
>> menulis:
>>
>>> Dear XFormsUsers and Steven,
>>>
>>> XForms, Networks of Languages, and Architecture...
>>>
>>>
>>> As we are trying to say architecturally about "XForms" regarding
>>> with"networks of languages":  may we imagine such buildings "Plan of Pope
>>>  Sixtus V for Rome in Italy,1585", "Yi Yuan (Garden of Contentment) in
>>> Suzhou, China, 19th century" and "Plan for Washington D.C., USA, 1792" with
>>> their network configurations of the path (Ching, F.D.K, "Architecture:
>>> Form, Space and Order", John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007, pp. 276-277)...?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Regard,
>>> Guntur Wiseno Putra
>>>
>>> Pada Rabu, 02 Oktober 2019, Steven Pemberton <steven.pemberton@cwi.nl>
>>> menulis:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 01 Oct 2019 17:32:50 +0200, Guntur Wiseno Putra <
>>>> gsenopu@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear XForm Users and Steven,
>>>>
>>>> To share what may be inspiring:
>>>>
>>>> It is known that there are architectures of machines and systems
>>>> regarding with computing technologies: does it sound fantastic if there is
>>>> a language supporting those architectures...? --a language by which we may
>>>> work out the architectures...? --thus we may build or renovate machines and
>>>> systems using the language...?
>>>>
>>>> Of a reading, "architecture" consists elements "form", "space", and
>>>> "order": does XForm language -- together with, if there are,  XSpace and
>>>> XOrder-- embody part of such an architectural programme...? --or at least
>>>> potentially...?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In XForms, the form is provided by the model, the order by the content
>>>> in the body, and the space by the CSS.
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes,
>>>>
>>>> Steven
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Regard,
>>>> Guntur Wiseno Putra
>>>>
>>>> Pada Selasa, 01 Oktober 2019, Steven Pemberton <steven.pemberton@cwi.nl>
>>>> menulis:
>>>>
>>>>> It struck me that we should be making a collection of references to
>>>>> all papers about XForms.
>>>>>
>>>>> Please reply to this message with examples you know that should be
>>>>> included. I will collect them all together.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>
>>>>> Steven
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, 01 Oct 2019 15:40:30 +0200, Steven Pemberton <
>>>>> steven.pemberton@cwi.nl> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> By John Boyer.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Contains an XForms implementation of quicksort.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ABSTRACT
>>>>>> It is difficult to generally compare the succinctness of declarative
>>>>>> versus imperative programming as source code size varies. In
>>>>>> imperative programs, basic operations have constant cost, but they
>>>>>> tend to be more verbose than declarative programs, which increases
>>>>>> the potential for defects. This paper presents a novel approach for a
>>>>>> generalized comparison by transforming the problem into comparing
>>>>>> executed code size of a benchmark imperative algorithm with
>>>>>> a partially declarative variant of the same algorithm. This allows
>>>>>> input size variation to substitute for source code size variation. For
>>>>>> implementation, we use a multiparadigm language called XForms
>>>>>> that contains both declarative XPath expressions and imperative
>>>>>> script actions for interacting with XML data within web and office
>>>>>> documents. A novel partially declarative variant of the quicksort is
>>>>>> presented. Amortized analysis shows that onlyO(n) imperative actions
>>>>>> are executed, so the expressive power of the declarative constructs is at
>>>>>> least Ω(logn). In general, declarative constructs can
>>>>>> have an order of magnitude expressive power advantage compared
>>>>>> with only using basic imperative operations. The performance cost
>>>>>> factor of the expressive power advantage was determined to be
>>>>>> O(log2 n) based on a novel dynamic projection from the generalized
>>>>>> tree structure of XML data to a height balanced binary tree.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://dl.acm.org/results.cfm?within=owners.owner%3DHOSTED&
>>>>>> srt=_score&query=10.1145%2F3342558.3345397&Go.x=0&Go.y=0
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>
>
>