Thoughts: some DOM some general

Here are a few thoughts; each one is a paragraph deep.

Typo in introduction.htm: it is an "object model" is used in the
Should Read: it is an "object model" as used in the

Would it be off base to suggest that (when the time comes) Frozen Document
Objects be hoerked out by the servers; into the waiting maw of the DOM aware
clients? That sounds like, at last, the 'Compiled Hypertext' I have been
seeking!

I have always found Dynamic HTML to be a confusing term. Conditional HTML;
HTML as a function of time [HTML(t)]; HTML with scripts and actions; HTML on
toast... anything but dynamic.

An aside from the bandwidth junkie that lurks within me: can we PLEASE
settle on a compressed transmission protocol? XML seems like teXtML whereas
I want gzipML.

In addition to resolving & into &, the text could be sanitized for white
space by reducing all white space runs into the single ' '. Analysers might
benefit from the guarantee. (In the absence of conformity to the spec,
here's an opportunity for a rogue DOM to create invisible incompatability or
other bogus operations... Begging the question: what are the procedures for
registering that a DOM implementation matches the spec?).

I have always wanted hypertext to have a built in conditional door; for an
instantiation of a document to be able to describe the visible form to be
applied as a function of where else the user has been. [eg. If the user
holds the lantern and has been to the big room full of birds then let the
link to the outside world be visible]

It should be possible to request a graph summary of the structure of a
document from the DOM. The illustration that accompanies
http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-DOM/introduction.html shows
the type of structure that an analyzer might like to be able to interpret.
I'm looking for a tree without its leaves (sort of) thumbnail of the
essential coarse structure of the document. An image indicating the topology
of a document could, then, be generated for any document, simply by
requesting the structure graph and rendering it according to a rendering
algorithm independant of the DOM.

An abstract graph-like representation of document structure is, one might
argue,
not unlike the network of links that are incident on, and extend from, and
are embedded within a document. To me links have boundary and transition
effects whose context is determined in part by the documents being entwined,
but that discussion must wait and should probably be directed away from the
DOM group.

That's enough for now.

(Have I mentioned that I'm 13 years in the business, and that I am seeking
new employment options?)

Les Cuff
nf.ca

Received on Friday, 31 July 1998 22:10:28 UTC