Examples:
1) K-12 textbooks
2) Printed survey forms for large market research firms.
In example 1, there's a pedagogical relationship between text and
illustrations.
It occurs to me
that a relationship this critical to the purpose of the information
certainly isn't
throw_away.
In example 2, there's a value in preserving both
page fidelity and page integrity if information is moved from one digital
format to another,
so that inconsistent or erroneous data isn't collected. (What I'm trying
to say here is that
if they move to SGML, questions on a page can't move undeterminately as it
will throw questions
in to the reliability of the data collected.)
In examples 1 and 2 above, in fact format is part_of the knowledge one
would want to
capture about the content.
I wonder if perhaps there's a place for a level of abstraction, SGML
expressed, that is about_format although not necessarily processor
specific. It occurs to me (although I must plead a very slender thread of
evidence in this regard), that Hytime syntax would lend itself to modelling
such abstractions.
Since some of Hytime is included in the XML set of specifications, I think
this mailing list is a good place to post this question.
Cynthia Shern
Product Specialist
Arbortext, Inc.
1000 Victors Way, Suite 100
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
(734) 997-0200