[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: patterns vs. identifiers
> That's presumably how humans cope with the problem of distinguishing > "tables" from "tables". People know better than to do this, but > most could understand a sentence like: "We need to table the discussion of > how to format the table for our catalog of tables." No URI's needed! So the question may be more-- when do we need identity? When we need to understand the sentence we need to be able to identify each of the "table" words in the above sentence, but not to pass it around in an email-- it is just text. In my brain at least the above is parsed as follows: 1) upon encountering the first table mentally call up the definition of "table" I come up with several 2) determine usage (the first is a verb) 3) determine defininition based on context In cases where I don't know the word-- the second two may suffice. I wonder if this can be used in software. When we begin parsing we have a list of recognized vocabularies, (which may each include a "definition" for a table element)-- once we have identified the possibilities then determine usage (root, container, empty) and finally if there is still overlap determine by context. Of course this is application level code. In a FurnitureML renderer suppose it encounters a <MartianRover> in the position that a <table> would normally go. It may not understand the term MatianRover but it could assume based on usage and context that it is *some* kind of furniture. It could simply draw a box in place where it would normally draw a table. But is this an improvement? Jeff Rafter Defined Systems http://www.defined.net XML Development and Developer Web Hosting
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