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From: romwa@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Mark Dornfeld)
Date: Mon, 1-Aug-88 12:33:39 EDT
Message-ID: <1988Aug1.123339.27283@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>
Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: SGML defended (Long)
References: <61024@sun.uucp> <7986@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1988Jul26.220348.4254@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> <62137@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: romwa@gpu.utcs.UUCP (Mark Dornfeld)

In article <62137@sun.uucp> tut%cairo@Sun.COM (Bill "Bill" Tuthill) writes:
>So I'm learning that SGML is not
>
>	Standard	(multiple tag sets exist)
 The standard is comprised of rules, not tag sets.  Similar to
 the C language "standard", which is not a set of programs, but rules
 by which to write programs.
>	General		(doesn't do graphics, tables, or equations)
 File handling and processing is taken care of by the host system.
 An SGML document could be a bitmap graphic with appropriate
 description associated with it.  The AAP implementation
 includes a very workable method for describing tables, not
 setting them.  Entity sets for describing equation symbols are
 supplied in the annex to the standard.
>    for	Markup		(not intended for typesetting)
 That's right.  Let typesetting programs do the typesetting.
>      a	Language	(rather a syntax for describing a language)
 I quote from "The Standard" (ISO 8879-1986(E), Page 1): "This
International Standard specifies a language for document
representation referred to as the "Standard Generalized Markup
Language" (SGML).  SGML can be used for publishing in its
broadest definition, ranging from single medium conventional
publishing to multi-media data base publishing.  SGML can also
be used in office document processing when the benefits of
human readability and interchange with publishing systems are
required."
>
>Could SGML possibly be misnamed?  Was it hopelessly naive of me to assume
>that the word Markup in its name indicates it is used for markup?
>
>At least I'm learning something from this discussion.

My background is Troff.  When I began to see that our
institution could not depend on a single typesetting system,
but would be using graphical programs such as Ventura
Publisher, Pagemaker, and would also have to send out material
to be typeset at commercial typesetters, the value of SGML
became clear.  Since the same editors/writers would be
producing text for any one of these systems, it was important
that we teach them a single markup system.  SGML seems to be
the one.

It is a trivial matter to filter SGML to troff, Ventura,
Pagemaker and even to some commercial typesetters' "markup."
Since many of our typesetting jobs are repetitive, but the
typesetter isn't, we can achieve a level of control not
possible before.  Our documents become more consistent and
less time is taken in editing and markup.

When we begin a massive records management project sometime in
the future and wish to store data on optical media, we will
want a system that is not tied to a particular processing
system.  Rather we will want the information to be described
in an independant way.  SGML again seems to fit the bill.

SGML doesn't care whether you indent your paragraphs one or
two ems.  It just want to tell you there is a paragraph there
and leave the formatting to the designer.

I used to think if the whole world would just learn troff,
we'd be in great shape.  It's easy to get trapped by such a
flexible and powerful system as troff, but it just doesn't
answer all our needs.


Mark T. Dornfeld
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queens Park
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
M5S 2C6

mark@utgpu!rom      - or -     romwa@utgpu