Re: Finalised Glossary Definitions

	From moreau@crf.canon.fr Tue Mar 20 03:53 EST 2001
	Delivered-To: jones@research.att.com
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	Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 09:52:59 +0100
	From: "Jean-Jacques Moreau" <moreau@crf.canon.fr>
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	To: Mark Jones <jones@research.att.com>
	Cc: frystyk@microsoft.com, skw@hplb.hpl.hp.com,
	        "xml-dist-app@w3.org" <xml-dist-app@w3.org>
	Subject: Re: Finalised Glossary Definitions
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	Mark Jones wrote:

	> My problem, particularly for talking about the processing model, is
	> that I need terms for
	>
	> (1) "the thing that knows enough about the semantics of a block (given
	>     its tag) to map it to a thing that implements a very specific
	>     piece of behavior"
	>
	> (2) "the thing that implements a very specific piece of behavior given
	>     a block"
	>
	> I think of (1) as a module, something like a class in programming
	> language terms.  I think of (2) as a handler, something like a method
	> name.
	>
	> If we make (1) the whole processor and (2) a handler, then it raises
	> the question about how the processor came to know enough about the
	> semantics of things (blocks, behavior, etc.) to make such a
	> determination. [...]

	Mark, I am wondering why (1) would have to know "about the semantics of a block" to do
	any sort of dispatching. After all, a Web browser does not know anything about the
	semantics of a particular MIME document, and is nevertheless capable of firing up the
	appropriate plugin. Why would block dispatching be different?

	Jean-Jacques.


Some blocks will indeed represent declarative info.  Other blocks,
including RPC blocks, are best seen as encoding some kind of intended
semantics (order a book from Amazon, etc.).  The processor determines
a handler based on the block tag.  My point was just that a processor,
right out of the box, doesn't know anything about such mappings.  It
is only when a specific module is added to the processor, that it gets
parameterized with this mapping.  It is the module that inherently
knows about the mapping.

--mark

Received on Tuesday, 20 March 2001 09:16:46 UTC