URLs/MIME only? [was Anchors Aweigh]

Len Bullard writes:
| you see, what I would really like is the HyTime contingent 
| to explain how the Hytime terms, properties, groves, grove 
| plans, etc. work in an object framework.  I know it can 
| be done with TEI, IADS, IDE/AS, DynaText, MIL-PRF-87269, 
| the Philly DTD, MIL-PRF-28001 and every other DTD to 
| which an element type for a link has ever been added.
| These systems don't interoperate.   HTML and VRML do 
| and they aren't even in the same syntax, but they agree 
| on what a hyperlink is and does down to "target=".

They do so because the behavior of the link is implied
by its context and because the addressing is completely
contained within the URL.  The commonality is in the
use of URLs.  

So *purely* as a point for discussion, let me pose the 
following:

 The Web uses URLs (and to some degree, nascent URNs) 
 for link addressing.  Linking methods are expressed 
 mostly within URLs, and URL schemes are not necessarily
 tied to the data formats of the target entities.

 XML is specifically intended for use on the Web.

 Why should XML specify any mechanisms for hyperlinking
 other than those already in use?  

 How are XML agents to interoperate with other Web agents if 
 they do not confine their expression of linking semantics to 
 URLs (maybe plus URNs), HTTP headers (generated from metadata?),  
 and MIME types?



Regards, 
    Terry Allen    Fujitsu Software Corp.    tallen@fsc.fujitsu.com
"In going on with these experiments, how many pretty systems do we build,
 which we soon find outselves obliged to destroy?" - Benjamin Franklin
  A Davenport Group Sponsor:  http://www.ora.com/davenport/index.html

Received on Saturday, 28 December 1996 19:42:15 UTC