Re: Anchors Aweigh

Martin Bryan wrote:
> 
> At 22:04 27/12/96 -0500, Gavin Nicol wrote:
> >>In any case we should not conflate the presentation and interaction
> >>aspects of  linking with the declarative, and "semantic relationship"
> >>aspect of linking.
> >
> >Absolutely. I would prefer us to define a set of data which comprises
> >a link, and leave interpretation to the application.
> 
> I second this. For stage one we need to learn how to identify what it is we
> need to link to and how to manage link definitions in a way that will
> preserve them over time. (This latter will be the killer part of a good
> linking mechanism.) Only when we have mastered this part of the problem
> should we consider how to 'standardize' the behaviour of links.

Everyone agrees that a data declared link is what we are after.
XML is SGML and SGML gives us no other alternative.  Selah.
I don't think you can avoid behavior for long.  At some point, 
implicitly or explicitly a link is used to do something.  If 
you embed it in the text a la <a href=, you have a goto.
Do we have to identify what we "want to link to" or the way 
we express a link given that XML is a meta language and there 
can be quite a few ways to express a link, none of which are 
without implementation implications?  As Eliot states, the 
grove concept was adopted because it provided a way to 
talk about a link.  So far, no one is offering any alternatives 
to that except to adopt TEI conventions.

So far, this discussion seems to have only two alternatives:
TEI or HyTime and HyTime is a standard which Eliot assures us 
is able to express TEI comfortably.

len bullard
lockheed martin

Received on Saturday, 28 December 1996 10:34:58 UTC