Re: xsl-fo first anniversary

Whoops, forgot to answer - no the GenCode committee does not still exist
and it hasn't for many years.

Sharon

Sharon C. Adler
 Senior Manager, Extensible Technologies
 IBM Research
 PO Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY  10598
 tel:  914-784-6411 t/l 863
 fax: 914-784-6324



                                                                                                                               
                      Dave Pawson                                                                                              
                      <dpawson@nildram.        To:       eliot@isogen.com, www-xsl-fo@w3.org                                   
                      co.uk>                   cc:       Sharon Adler/Watson/IBM@IBMUS                                         
                                               Subject:  Re: xsl-fo first anniversary                                          
                      10/19/02 05:55 AM                                                                                        
                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                               



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 Monday, 21 October 2002 12:32:07 UTC