- From: Peter Murray-Rust <Peter@ursus.demon.co.uk>
- Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 12:55:56 GMT
- To: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
In message <199703270933.JAA25814@curia.ucc.ie> Peter Flynn writes: > > > O goddess, please not. This is in jest, right? > > Murray writes: > > > Nope. But what's the alternative? > > > > XML-CORE: fully supported or no support at all > > XML-LINK: fully supported or no support at all > > XML-STYLE: fully supported or no support at all > > > > Now really sit back and let that sink in a minute. If you want to develop > > an XML processor/application, you either support CORE or not. Fine so far. > > But if you want *any* linking or stylesheets (and you can't approach HTML's > > functionality at all without both) then you must implement both *completely*. I don't see this follows necessarily. I do not - at this stage - intend to implement stylesheets at all, but I do intend (within my technical limitations and an unknown final draft) to implement LINK completely. I have implemented TEI though I will have to extend it (if not in XML, then at application level). [I need to be able to search numbers, chemical formulae, etc. after retrieving 'resources' via TEI.] I am working on what I believe to be a 'link processor' for JUMBO, though I'm not yet clear precisely what the spec demands. The reality with JUMBO is that I want to (a) implement XML-CORE completely. The only sensible way is via NXP/Lark. (a1) implement some application functionality (e.g. editing, browsing, rendering, etc.) on top of XML-CORE. We all agree that that is my business - if it's reusable by other members of the community, great. (b) I want to have the whole of XML-LINK. Whether I do depends on whether - I am capable of doing it all in Java - someone else writes reusable components for TEI and/or LINK (b1) I want the client-side application to be able to search documents/objects. I choose to use TEI for that because: - I understand it (unlike DSSSL) - it does (most of) what I want. - it might come for free as a reusable component - it will have wide currency. I will, at least, have to have an application-specific method for extending the TEI addressing. FOREIGN seemed obvious and very cheap, but I've had my say. (b2) I want to implement robust hyperlinking. I will use XML-LINK (I am taking it on trust that the ERB knows better than I do what I need :-). The latest draft about Xptr is precisely what I want, for example.) However, I may fail in my ability to implement links, and my application will simply say to the user "sorry, JUMBO is not clever enough to support this feature". I suspect we are going to see a good deal of that :-) (c) I have no obvious need for DSSSL. There are several reasons: - it will take me 2-3 months to understand it and see if Kawa or similar is useful to me. (Scheme is a non-starter, sorry) - our community will take years to write in it. - they think that plugins and CSS will solve their problems anyway - it offers no functionality *after* parsing (or at least after rendering) as far as I can see. (c1) I believe we can solve our 'style' problems by supplying methods attached to elements/objects. I may well be wrong, but it works so far. For example, I have taken Jon's PLAY and hacked a very few classes which render it appropriate styles. Thus there is a PERSONA class which draws a little icon and changes the font. Where appropriate it uses TEI notation to identify components to process. I doubt there is much more code than DSSSL equivalent. The key question which I hope XML-WG/ERB will answer is "how do I specify whcih version of a class to apply to FOO?" That seems to me to be isomorphic with "which style sheet containing FOO shall I use?" and *possibly* "how do I get it" :-). It is possible that this question will be answered under XML-LINK rather than XML-STYLE since it could be thought of as 'behaviour'. If so, great! :-) P. -- Peter Murray-Rust, domestic net connection Virtual School of Molecular Sciences http://www.vsms.nottingham.ac.uk/
Received on Thursday, 27 March 1997 08:12:20 UTC