pure vs. impure formats

  From: "T. V. Raman" <raman@Adobe.COM>
  
  I do not disagree with you on the need for synchrony between
  Braille and print versions.
  
  However, mixing in either print specific or Braille specific
  markup into the document is wrong --and it is wrong to mixin Braille
  pagebreaks into the markup for the same reasons that it is wrong to mixin
  visual printing specific markup into the document.
  
  Both of these belong in the style sheet arena plus the specs
  like the printing spec that is trying to solve precisely the same problem.
  
[Al, here...]

My text: "mixing in either print specific or Braille specific
markup into the document is wrong"

This use of the phrase "into the document" gives the document too
small a scope.  The layout styling, even if it is segregated into
data separate from some more abstract content representation, is
still _part of the document_.  We can't capture the value-added
of a book designer without it.

There remains the question as how this information is represented
in data.

This is an issue where I think end-users take a back seat in the
ultimate decision.

I can see a user-level requirement that flows down to a broad
technical policy that all acceptable data formats support public
methods that extract core content into public representations.

Whether this is done by a factored data format or a filter is for
the implementors to argue about.

Part of what powered the ascendancy of WYSIWYG in the computer
market is the use of as little abstraction as one can get away
with.

I don't see this as an issue we can dispose of summarily.  I
think that this is a decision on which the group would do well to
suspend judgement and invest some time comparing alternatives.

--
Al Gilman

Received on Tuesday, 20 May 1997 16:33:05 UTC