Newsgroups: comp.text.sgml
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!cbnewsi!hrs1
From: hrs1@cbnewsi.att.com (herman.r.silbiger)
Subject: Re: What about the DTD
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 20:18:50 GMT
Message-ID: <1990Oct18.201850.9304@cbnewsi.att.com>
Summary: how many architectures?
References: <8149@mcshh.hanse.de> <1990Oct5.003326.4284@cbnewsi.att.com> <1990Oct13.195117.26372@sq.sq.com>
Keywords: "SGML Document", DTD, architectures
Lines: 46

In article <1990Oct13.195117.26372@sq.sq.com>, yuri@sq.sq.com (Yuri Rubinsky) writes:
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> 
> However, Herman Silbiger (hsilbiger@attmail.com) writes:
> 
> > SGML encoded documents cannot be used in an Open Interchange environment,
> > since, as you have found out, the document cannot be interpreted unless you
> > also have the DTD.  This is one of the reasons that ODA adopted a standardized
> > architecture.
> 
> > While it is true that ODA applications also must conform to a Document 
> > Application Profile (DAP), these are hierarchical subsets of the complete
> > standard.  If you conform to the highest level, you can understand all the
> > lower levels.  In SGML, conforming to one DTD does not help you with the others.
> 
> Conforming to SGML -- not (as Carsten has realised) to one DTD -- is the
> secret of success.  SGML is a **language** which we use to build
> the architectures we need.
> 
> This is precisely the strength of SGML.  The odds are slim of all of us agreeing
> on architectures that will support us in our trade book publishing, our
> electronic disclosure of financial information, our creation of technical
> manuals for airplanes and aircraft carriers, our building of hypertexts in
> a variety of disciplines, our encoding of music, or poetry, or drama,
> our interchange of machine-readable dictionaries and research texts,
> our creation of training manuals and software reference guides. Indeed, the
> odds are very slim of our finding **one architecture** to support all this
> plus the things we can't yet imagine.
> 
> But, with systems which can read any DTD, and "reconfigure" themselves
> to understand a variety of architectures, one is not restricted.
> _________________________________________________________________

I have heard much about the advantage of not having a standardized architecture,
which will allow so much freedom in a publishing environment.  However, I have
never seen or heard of such an instance where the ODA architecture could not 
decscribe the structure of a document.  If you know of such an example, please 
describe it.

The one example which has been given was for a hypermedia document.  However, it is possible to have links in the ODA structure which allow hypermedia documents.
In any case, such hypermedia documents are difficult to render in a print medium whether ODA or SGML/DTD is used.

Herman Silbiger
hsilbiger@attmail.com