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Re: Co-operating with Architectural Forms

• To: Sean McGrath <sean.mcgrath@p...>
• Subject: Re: Co-operating with Architectural Forms
• From: Norman Gray <norman@a...>
• Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 13:26:41 +0000 (GMT)
• Cc: xml-dev <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <5.1.0.14.2.20020131212036.01c9f008@p...>

Greetings,

On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Sean McGrath wrote:

> So, we could proceed as follows:
>
> 1) Parse in the normal fashion using schema language du jour
> 2) Map using a lightweight mapping utility, the concrete element types to
> those of the required base classes
> 3) Key off these new element type names for processing
>
> Works for me. Simple and Elegant with no frightening works like "meta" and
> "abstractions". IT
> appeals to the engineer in me:-)
>
> All we need now is a pipeline processor to make joining these three phases
> together a
> trivial configuration exercise. A sort of assembly line maybe.

Surely we already have this already, in SP.

There's a James Clark posting to comp.text.sgml, from 1996, which is
archived at Oasis[1].  It's worth close examination, though it is
typically compressed.  It's true that the `schema language du jour',
here, is indeed DTD, with the AF syntax which I think everyone agrees
is ugly (for historical and irrelevant reasons).  However, note that

  - The instance html.sgm makes no mention of the architectures it can
    be `re-manifested' as -- that's all in htmljjc.dtd.  Thus the
    instance can be completely ignorant of this whole process.

  - The `sgmlnorm' commands appear to represent exactly the `lightweight
    mapping utility' Sean is suggesting.

  - The rest of the pipeline could be any processing you like.

There is an extent to which I'm writing this from a hole under a
bridge, but really -- how hard is this?  There's the issue about the
AF syntax which would have to be argued about, and someone would have
to implement it in the schema language du demain, but from the users'
point of view (in this present case, that's us, mostly) it's simple
and elegant with no frightening words like meta.

Norman


[1] http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/clarkArchSamp.html

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norman Gray                        http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/
Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK     norman@a...

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