Re: Reference Model

Steven R. Newcomb (srn@techno.com)
Tue, 14 Jul 1998 15:52:26 -0500

> Has anyone developed (or is anyone developing) a reference model for
> document-based knowledge/information interchange (with a generic markup
> focus)?

Check out topic maps, which are in the throes of standardization
by ISO, and which are expressible using extended XLinks or HyTime
links. http://www.hightext.com has a draft or two.

> > 1. what FOOs can contain
> > 2. where FOOs can be
> > 3. what FOOs look like when presented
> > 4. what FOOs do when the user does something
> > 5. what an application is to do when it gets a FOO.
> > 6. what other labels people use for FOOs.
> > 7. what people mean by FOO.

The topic map stuff deals with 6 and 7 only. The rest of the issues
you raise are handled by other standards, existing and planned:

1. Schema languages.
2. Addressing. See the HyTime standard for a wealth of generality.
3. Stylesheets.
4. Scripts.
5. Applications; maybe SGML architectures and property sets, too.
(again, see HyTime for a general approach)

-Steve

--
Steven R. Newcomb, President, TechnoTeacher, Inc.
srn@techno.com  http://www.techno.com  ftp.techno.com


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