[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Is HTML structured or unstructured information?
On 8/11/05, Philippe Poulard <Philippe.Poulard@s...> wrote: > Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote: > > ... > > HTML is the example many think they understand. > > HTML is not just a presentational vocabulary. > > META tags, for example, are not presentational. > > FORM tags aren't strictly presentational. Even > > DIVs aren't strictly presentational. In fact, > > almost any tag has aspects of presentation and > > content (note I am not using the term 'semantic' > > here because presentation is a semantic). The > > principle 'separation of presentation and content' > > is flaky in practice. > > ... > > hi, Claude > > IMHO, presentation is not semantic : semantic is used for terms that > means something ; you will say that "<b>" and "<i>" means "bold" and > "italic", but as a meaning of a tag applies on its content, you can't > say that : > "my name is <b>Philippe Poulard</b>" has not the same meaning that : > "my name is Philippe Poulard" ; Sure you can: the code that decides how to display the two will most likely decide they have different meaning.... Semantics aren't just for humans any more! <snip>conclusions that follow from the assumption that only humans care about the meaning of tags</snip> > the real question is not about "structured or unstructured" information, > because by definition markup languages ARE structured, but rather about > "semantic or not semantic" : XML as well RDBMS may structure both > semantic and non-semantic information > Respectfully disagree: structure and semantics are in the eye of the beholder: tell me is a blob of XML stored in a RDB structured or not? Does the same blob have any semantic meaning? What if the RDB can parse the blob into a SOAP descriptor? What if it used a grammar stored in another blob to do so? -- Peter Hunsberger
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|