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RE: Common Word Processing Format

• To: 'Peter Hunsberger' <peter.hunsberger@g...>
• Subject: RE: Common Word Processing Format
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>
• Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:10:02 -0600
• Cc: xml-dev@l...

Yes Peter, but if this is a dare to do less event, battles 
are always waiting and that is fine, because of the 
three questions a) what is open b) what is open enough 
c) what is good enough?  it is the third that your 
question pertains to.  If we really want fewer XML 
formats (another bone picked by the bloggers), then 
we have to get the right ones.

On the other hand:

I am looking to the compound doc format work at the 
W3C and ISO to sort out a standard for containerized 
objects.  Is that a word processing format?  I don't 
think so but that is an issue that came up in Atlanta: 
what should be in a common format given embedded objects, 
application state saved between sessions, and so on.  
That work, I think, is the beginning of specification 
for the next generation browser, not a wp format.

But if the most common objects are paras, lists, tables, 
images etc. (not a novel idea, btw, this has been said 
repeatedly over the years before the web and during, 
it being one of the few obvious observations about 
wp formats even in the CDA days, Wysiwyg wars etc), 
then we have a common format in HTML.  Is that good 
enough?

len

From: Peter Hunsberger [mailto:peter.hunsberger@g...]

On 11/29/05, Bullard, Claude L (Len) <len.bullard@i...> wrote:
> Spy Vs Spy aside for the moment, and following the thought experiment at
Tim
> Bray's blog:
>
> How much of a common word processing format subset is represented by HTML?
> How much isn't?  How much could be added by namespaced behaviors?
>
> IOW, don't we have one of these?

Interesting question.  Early in my career I spent a lot of time with
SGML.  Given that the target in those days was document publishing I
don't think there where many constructs missing that Word it it's kin
would possess with the exception of behaviours.  When HTML came along
I was first surprised that so many of the SGML constructs had made it
into the spec. but there where also times when I found things missing
that I sort of wanted.

How much is missing?  I bet I have an IBM SGML reference card in my
attic somewhere, building the feature checklist would be easy... 
However, the need for macros and behaviours would be all new (to
standardised HTML), so although it might be a good starting point, I
somehow doubt that it's the end point?  I suspect you're still going
to have some battles to win before any new standard emerges.

<snip/>

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