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Re: What A Document Means

• To: "Bullard, Claude L \(Len\)" <clbullar@i...>, <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: What A Document Means
• From: "Eric Chiu" <echiu@i...>
• Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2002 23:26:39 -0800
• Delivered-to: xml-dev@l...
• Organization: Imservice, Inc
• References: <2C61CCE8A870D211A523080009B94E4306FEEA9C@HQ5>

> In http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/docmeaning.html
>
> we are given a one page attempt to define what "a document means".
>
> First what a document is "on the web":
>
> "A document on the Web is a stream of bits identified with a specific MIME
type. The MIME type indicates to the processor how it may interpret the
stream of bits to decompose it into a sequence of characters, for example,
or a specific bitmap image."
>

Back to the basics, huh? Other than as a philosophical exercise, what is
the value of defining "document" in the the context of XML?

The definition asserts that documents per se must have a MIME type, and
without a human or computer definition of a MIME it is meanless.
So if I create a text files without an associated MIME type
(say text/html)with this content:

<NotADocument> This is not a document</NotADocument>

Does that mean it is not a document, since there is no MIME type?

> So far so good.  That is a systemic definition.  There is a list with
possible
> solutions for determining in an "unambiguous way" what a document "means".
> One possible answer is
>
> "The document forms a complete information set. Although expensive in the
general case, it's not entirely unreasonable to imagine applications that
examine an entire information set."
>
> Can someone explain this?  What is an "information set" and how does
> one determine "completeness" for two ends of a single transaction or
communication?

In a logical system, you build other propositions from a set of axioms that
are given as it.
In this case information set is probably another (unfortunately, undefined)
axiom
which probably means a set of data, which can be numbers, alphabets, words,
etc.

• References:
  • What A Document Means
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>

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