Re: XML & SGML

W. Eliot Kimber (eliot@isogen.com)
Fri, 08 May 1998 09:27:43 -0500

At 08:50 AM 5/8/98 -0400, Paul Prescod wrote:
>I think that Eliot, on the other hand, felt it was his personal duty to
>use every SGML feature possible so that he would have an excuse to tell
>vendors that their products were broken. :) That is good for the rest of
>us, because he kept raising the bar, but it must have been very painful
>out there on the bleeding edge. I think I'll continue to duck in behind
>him.

I'm still trying to staunch the bleeding.

But seriously, I use those features of SGML that offer value to my and my
clients' applications. Most of the features of SGML were invented for a
good reason to solve real problems that people have. And, like any
sufficiently general system, facilities designed for one purpose turn out
to be useful for other, unanticipated purposes. For example, the simple
LINK feature, which is really hopeless at its intended task, is ideal for
adding architectural mappings to documents without disturbing the original
DTD declarations.

I have never asked for facilities that aren't useful. For example, I have
never berated a tool supplier for not supporting CONCUR, RANK, DATATAG, or
explicit LINK.

Cheers,

E.

--
<Address HyTime=bibloc>
W. Eliot Kimber, Senior Consulting SGML Engineer
ISOGEN International Corp.
2200 N. Lamar St., Suite 230, Dallas, TX 95202.  214.953.0004
www.isogen.com
</Address>