Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnewsi!hrs1
From: hrs1@cbnewsi.ATT.COM (herman.r.silbiger)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Want info on SGML
Summary: page description languages
Keywords: SGML, document processing, markup
Message-ID: <375@cbnewsi.ATT.COM>
Date: 11 Jul 89 13:20:08 GMT
References: <8210005@hp-lsd.HP.COM> <3790@orca.WV.TEK.COM> <1141@io.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 31

In article <1141@io.UUCP>, edb@io.UUCP (Ed Blachman x4420) writes:
>  And there's currently an ISO committee working on something
>  called the SPDL -- Standard Page Description Language -- which will be
>  an application of SGML to page markup.  (Don't ask me why the world
>  needs another page markup language --

There currently is no STANDARD page description language.  Postscript(TM) is
widely used, but it is not a standard, and it is controlled by Adobe Systems.
Interpress(TM) by Xerox is another PDL.  SPDL will be internationally standardized, and will have a cleartext, an SGML, and an ASN.1 form.  ODA structured 
will be able to be rendered by SPDL.  The editors of the SPDL draft are Matt
Foley from Adobe, and Steve Strassen from Xerox.
> 
>  and that's already a big step forward.  And SGML's companion standard,
>  DSSSL (the Document Style and Semantics Specification Language), will
>  allow (as you'd expect from the name) style and semantic information to
>  be associated with the hierarchically nested tags characteristic of SGML-
>  based languages; the combination of an SGML DTD (Document Type Definition,
>  really a markup language specification) and its associated output spec
>  written in DSSSL should truly allow documents to be interchanged among
>  disparate processing systems with matching results.

DSSSL is NOT exclusively SGML related, although SGML has the greatest need for 
it.  By interbnational agreement, DSSSL will use ODA semantics and syntax
(source: ISO/IEC JTC1/SC18/WG8), and in effect will be a superset of ODA.
There will be an ASN.1 version as well as the SGML version.

As I mentioned in an earlier followup, this work is taking place in the US in
the X3V1 standards committee, and its international counterpart, JTC1/SC18.

Herman Silbiger hrs@batavier.ATT.COM
201 949 3193