Re: Radical cure for BOS confusion

At 08:40 AM 1/9/97 -0800, Jon Bosak wrote:
>My problem (and I think Martin's problem and Len's problem) can be
>solved with a mechanism that allows the construction of ilink
>databases and a way to include specific ilink databases in the XML
>BOSs of specific documents.  I like this approach partly because it
>gives me a believably finite set of links to manage and partly because
>I can divide up the work of maintaining such a structure and assign
>that work to specific people.

An ilink does not inherently locate any thing.  it relates data.  If an
ilink points at an ilink, it points at the ilink.  If an ilink points at an
addressing construct (as upposed to ilink and alink which are hyperlinking
constructs) then indirection may occur.  I agree that this can cause
problems.  I do not think that a target need necessarily be in the BOS.  The
BOS (as I understand it) is the set of documents _required_ to represent all
the hyperlinks and their data, in addition to the source document.  This is
not HyTime's interpretation.  I see no problem with hyperlinking to a
document which is not in the BOS.  The borwser would treat that as a HTML
<A> style link, dropping the current document and getting the new document
(and it's BOS?).  The BOS exists for those cases where a documentis
meaningless without some common resources held in other documents (you can
use this similar to a catalog, but for hyperlinking).  Thus if you need to
refer to the description of the history of your company's name, their might
be a locator (addressing construct) in teh resource document which actually
points to that information.  it may be part of another document, or a
document in it's won right.  The resource document allow everyone to share a
locator for that information so that when if moves, the new address needs
only be changed in the resource file.  Another common ilink resource might
be an annotation document.

In any case, these resources may not be under the direct control of the
autrhor, but are under the control fo the authoring group.  If an author
includes a document as a resource, this should never do more that include
other resources which that resource file needed.  There is potential for
abuse there, as you describe, but it is not intended that resources be
large, nor that authors use resources much beyond their control.  (The
resources might be controled by someone else on the authoring teem, but not
some unknown other entity.)

-derek
"that which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal: from which it
follows
 that irregularity - that is to say, the unexpected, surprise, and astonishment,
    are an essential part and characteristic of beauty" - Charles Baudelaire

Received on Thursday, 9 January 1997 12:31:30 UTC