Re: What are the problems with IDML? (fwd)

MegaZone was known to have written:
> 
> Once upon a time Fisher Mark shaped the electrons to say...
> >The third major piece to the puzzle -- how to represent multiple products
> >per page -- is more problematic.  I can see here where additional tags could
> 
> Not really - just make sure the method is defined.  As I proposed in
> another letter, some of the tags are mandatory.  Make one of those tags the
> 'open' tag for an object/product.  The 'close' could either be a new tag
> used for that (wasteful IMHO) or simply one of these conditions:
> * another open tag (new object/product)
> * any tag it doesn't recognize as part of the IDENTIFY structure - covers
> end of HEAD, other head tags, etc.
> 

Which is what we have done (more or less) in our "debate" page:

	http://www.identify.com/welcome/idml_v_meta.html

So, yes, I agree that META could be used to instantiate the
IDML data model.   And yes, you can write a robot to understand
this format.

However a couple of open questions:  

	1) Which would you prefer to write as a user (after all, 
	   it's the user we're trying to help!)?
	2) Which would you prefer to parse as a robot writer [1]?

We're considering whether we should accept IDML data in
a META tag format.  However, I'd interested to hear the
rest of list's opinion (you need not reply to the list;
send mail to me or to "info@identify.com").

Thanks,

-Doug

[1] Just an observation here -- to be able to read and parse
    IDML data, you will have to modify and/or enhance any robots
    that you currently have (to validate the values and to
    do the "pasting" of seperate META tags back together).  
    If you are going to have to change your robot anyway, why not
    consider using IDML format instead (after all an IDML tag
    is not syntactically different than an <IMG> tag)?

-- 


J. Douglas Donohoe
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Emerge Consulting			   Chief Technology Officer
415.328.6700			              http://www.emerge.com
donohoe@emerge.com			    http://www.identify.com

Received on Thursday, 22 August 1996 13:44:48 UTC