Re: Relationship types

At 08:49 23/1/97 -0800, Jon Bosak wrote:

>Assume that some syntax has been specified for labeling the
>relationship between link ends.  Consider the following incomplete
>list of relationship types, lifted directly from existing proposals
>for HTML standardization:
>
>   PARENT
>   CHILD
>   PREVIOUS
>   NEXT
>   IMPLIES
>
>Is it possible to agree on a basic list of such types?

Not if this list could be taken as all you need rather than a possible
starter set.

The HTML Internationalization group is trying to get the current list
extended to cover the relationship between translations. At least 20
different suggestions have been made so far this year, all of which would be
perfectly valid link types. As with HTML you need a general mechanism that
comes with a few suggestions as to how to use it.

>Is it useful to agree on a basic list of such types?

How long do you have for such an exercise. Here's just a few that I would
like to see:

Copyright notice
Reuse permission request
Machine translation of
Human translation of
Human-corrected machine translation of
ASCII text version of
EBCDIC version of
PDF version of
Issue date of
Last-update date
Last usable date
Encryption key for
Security clearance request 

Need I go on....and on.... and on.....?

>If such a list were defined, would it be better to restrict the labels
>that could be applied to a relationship to the choices on the list, or
>would it be better to allow additional labels not on the list to be
>applied on an ad hoc basis?

Do you really want to restrict them?
----
Martin Bryan, The SGML Centre, Churchdown, Glos. GL3 2PU, UK 
Phone/Fax: +44 1452 714029   WWW home page: http://www.u-net.com/~sgml/

Received on Thursday, 23 January 1997 12:50:24 UTC