Re: Revision Marking in HTML

Play the video

Subject: Re: Revision Marking in HTML
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 12:35:10 -0400

Nadia,

While you are trying to apply David's solution I'd recommend you also test XMetaL to see whether the assumption he makes in his code (the PI pairs are "well-balanced" with respect to element markup) is correct, or whether XMetaL cannot in fact insert such a PI wherever it likes, thereby breaking the implicit "containment" and presenting, in effect, an overlap problem. (The "virtual" elements demarcated by the PI-pairs overlap the XML's own element structures.)

While I haven't myself tested XMetaL for this, I fear and suspect this is the case.

Overlap problems are notoriously hard for XML technologies in general, and there is a considerable (and growing) literature on the topic. It's sometimes referred to as "multiple concurrent hierarchies". The various approaches to dealing with this vary quite a bit depending on the actual processing requirements for the system (e.g. projects that work with stable and complete datasets can do things very differently from systems that have to deal with new data all the time), and include proposals to step outside XML altogether. This is because, better than any other example I can think of in XML tech, they demonstrate the engineering principle (or Cosmic Law of Compensation, if you prefer) that where there's a gain, there's a loss. In this case, XML's clumsiness at dealing with this (or more precisely, XSLT's) is a consequence of our establishing the tree as our data model of choice.

Keywords you might Google:

SGML CONCUR
markup overlap
multiple concurrent hierarchies
TexMECS
JITTS
LMNL

Cheers,
Wendell


======================================================================
Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML
======================================================================

Current Thread

RE: Revision Marking in HTML, (continued)
- Michael Kay - 26 Apr 2005 12:34:28 -0000
- David Carlisle - 26 Apr 2005 12:40:46 -0000
- Nadia . Swaby - 26 Apr 2005 15:00:59 -0000
  - David Carlisle - 26 Apr 2005 15:09:39 -0000
    - Wendell Piez - 26 Apr 2005 16:44:03 -0000 <=
    - Wendell Piez - 26 Apr 2005 17:43:20 -0000
    - David Carlisle - 26 Apr 2005 20:21:24 -0000
- Nadia . Swaby - 26 Apr 2005 17:56:30 -0000
  - Message not available
    - Wendell Piez - 26 Apr 2005 18:01:01 -0000

<- Previous	Index	Next ->
Re: Revision Marking in HTML, David Carlisle	Thread	Re: Revision Marking in HTML, Wendell Piez
XSL-FO - Keeps & Breaks, craig webber	Date	weird formatting and characte, Spencer Tickner
	Month

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

RSS 2.0
Atom 0.3

XML Editor - Download a 15 Day Free Trial Now >

See What's New in Stylus Studio >

Buy Stylus Studio - XML Editor - Now >