Re: xsl-fo first anniversary

At 21:57 18/10/2002, W. Eliot Kimber wrote:


>1960's: gencode projects start as a way to standardize typesetting codes. Basic ideas of generalized markup for documents start to form

http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/sgmlhist.htm
William Tunnicliffe credited ?

Also http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cache:BDOvZrsgsNkC:nl.ijs.si/et/talks/Eurolan/sgmlhist0.ps.gz+gencode+project&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
GCA GenCode committee,chaired by Sharon Adler of IBM

Does it still exist Sharon?


>1970's:
>  - Goldfarb, Moscher(? sorry, don't have SGML Handbook to hand), and Laurie develop GML at IBM in order to satisfy requirements of legal document search and retrieval. GML implemented on top of IBM's Document Composition Facility (DCF).


Edward Mosher and Raymond Lorie, yep found them.


>  - Various large publishers, such as Boeing (where Sharon worked) and the U.S. government start using GML to solve large-scale publishing problems. Quickly realize the limitation of having markup language bound too tightly to underlying typesetting language.

So this  was the time the split began between style and content?


>  - TeX is developed. LaTex developed--similar to GML in that it is a more semantic macro language on top of a low-level formatting language (not sure of the exact timing here).

Any direct relationship between gml and tex or were they parallel 
developments?


>1980's:
>  - SGML standard developed, driven both by GML and other industry efforts. Standard published in 1986.
>  - DSSSL standard work started, Sharon Adler editor and driving force

What was the trigger for DSSSL Sharon? Closing the loop back to gencode objectives?


>  - HyTime standard work started. Charles Goldfarb editor and driving force
>  - FOSI spec developed to meet U.S. DoD requirements (not sure of exact timing here). Implemented by Datalogics and Arbortext.

Was Paul with Arbortext then?

>Early 1990's:
>
>  - IBM starts developing SGML replacement for it's GML application BookMaster (used for 90% of IBM's publications).

Oh! News to me.


>  - HyTime standard published.

Sounds like a lonely interjection Eliot. 
  what was the motivation for this work please?

>1992: World Wide Web invented. Nobody gets it.
>
>1994: Mosaic 2.0 Web browser released. Supports graphics in Web pages. Suddenly everyone gets it (or starts to).

I'd question 'everyone' but I still remember the high of using my
first browser around that time.


>Mid 90's: CSS developed as a way to do client-side styling of HTML docs.

<grin/>We can't get them all right!


>1995:
>
>- HyTime and DSSSL camps realize they must come to agreement on the fundamental data model for SGML documents. Groves invented to solve this problem.

And nobody got groves either? 


>1996:
>- DSSSL standard published. James Clark releases Jade DSSSL implementation.
>
>- John Bosak starts "SGML on the Web" activity with the express goal of enabling high-quality rendering of SGML documents in Web browsers.

That's interesting. I started to monitor xml-dev in early 97, and hadn't
realised that was a goal, certainly not the 'high quality print' aspect.



>1997:
>
>  - HyTime standard V2 (now with groves) published.
>  - XML 1.0 published.
>  - Works start on XSL. Immediately gets diverted to task of generating HTML from XML.

Almost comical in retrospect. Sharon, were you part of the debate in the WG
on what to do about that? I remember the debate on mulberrytech.



>2001:
>  - XSL FO recommendation published. Four implementations availble: FOP, XEP, XSL Formatter, and Epic (partial implementation)
>
>2002:
>
>  - XEP, XSL Formatter, Epic all upgraded to implement almost all FO features and provide some support for missing FO features
>  - XSL FO reaches 1-year anniversary


Thanks Eliot. Much appreciated.

Regards DaveP

Received on Saturday, 19 October 2002 05:56:57 UTC