Re: [unrev-II] Preliminary Meeting with Ken Holman

From: Henry van Eyken (vaneyken@sympatico.ca)
Date: Mon Nov 13 2000 - 14:32:21 PST

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    Thanks God for Eric,

    Henry

    Eric Armstrong wrote:

    > Several of us had a chance to meet with Ken
    > Holman over the weekend. He was brought to
    > the party by John Deneen, and he was quite
    > happy to meet Doug. He very much wants to
    > make whatever contribution he can, which
    > pretty much makes him "one of the team".
    >
    > Ken is very knowledgable about XML and related
    > disciplines. And he is, or has been, very
    > active at OASIS (Organization for the Advancement
    > of Structured Information Standards). He is
    > looking forward to helping us define an interchange
    > standard, and shepard it through the various
    > committees, and so on.
    >
    > He also has a remarkable flair for design.
    > He picked up a rough sense of what we were about
    > in fairly short order, and began making insightful
    > observations based on his past design experience.
    >
    > Here are some of the technical points he developed
    > during the meeting...
    >
    > XML Basics
    > ----------
    > * XPATH is a basic structure-identification
    > mechanism
    >
    > * XPOINTER uses that representation mechanism,
    > and builds on it to add concepts like a
    > structure-range (from struct X to struct Y)
    >
    > * XSL/XSLT also uses XPATH as part of its
    > representation mechanisms
    >
    > * XSLT is a translation mechanism that can
    > generate XML, which can then be parsed.
    >
    > * XSL is the format-presentation layer. It defines
    > a ton of constructs that can be used to specify
    > how material prints, or is displayed.
    >
    > * RELAX is a very nice schema definition mechanism
    > that defines a theory-based representation
    > mechanism that lets you construct DTD *diffs*
    > and DTD *unions*. Unions let you modularize
    > DTDs, and ensure that a document conforms to
    > the result of combining them.)
    >
    > * SCHEMATRON is an assertion-based validation
    > mechanism. Using that mechanisms makes it possible
    > to validate assertions like "mixed content
    > containing text and inline elements occurs only
    > before substructure elements, never between or
    > after".
    >
    > [For me, this one was worth the price of
    > dmission. It totally solves the XML limitation
    > described in my paper on XML Editor Design.]
    >
    > Design Principles
    > -----------------
    > * Most application designs define an application-
    > specific language, and parse that. They tend
    > to consider XSLT as an afterthought. To make
    > use of it, a different representatiion is
    > parsed, written out as XML, and then reparsed
    > into the app.
    >
    > * But XSLT can quite easily produce SAX or
    > DOM output *directly*. So the kind of design
    > Ken recommends, uses XSL and a style sheet
    > to process any particular XML data. The result
    > becomes SAX events or a DOM in the app, so
    > that part of the app doesn't change. But now
    > you can process any other variant of the
    > XML that encodes the information, simply by
    > creating a new stylesheet, without a big
    > peformance hit -- the result is roughly
    > equivalent to having defined that language (or
    > any other variant) as the "reference langauge"
    > for the application.
    >
    > * Ken declared emphatically that DEFINING THE XML
    > EARLY ON IS INAPPROPRIATE. He's seen the mistake
    > made dozens of times, and counsels his clients
    > against it. His take on the matter is that XML
    > IS AN INTERCHANGE STANDARD and that the core of
    > the application is the services it provides.
    > Therefore, the only sequence that works in the
    > real world is to define those services, and *then*
    > come up with an XML form for the data that needs
    > to be interchanged.
    >
    > OHS Design
    > ----------
    > * In terms of the OHS, Ken's approach had some
    > remarkable implications for the design. Rather
    > than attempting to define a DTD for a "normal
    > form" OHS document, Ken suggests focusing on
    > the services, and building (or at least desiging)
    > those services. So for example, we need granular
    > addressibility. And we want it to apply to legacy
    > documents. Ok, then, the system requires
    > mechanisms for adding addresses to a legacy
    > document! The orginal document continues its
    > existence, unchanged. The OHS contains a pointer
    > to it, along with a collection of addresses that
    > point into it. The "HyperDocument" you view in
    > the "HyperScope" is then the product of those
    > addresses applied to that document.
    >
    > * Note that we have *not* defined a DTD for a
    > HyperDocument. We have defined functionality.
    > Now, when it comes to interchange data, how
    > does that happen? Well, what do you need to
    > send? You need to send a pointer to the original
    > document, at a minimum -- or possibly the
    > document itself if it is inaccessible. And you
    > need to send the additional information (like
    > the addresses) that are necessary to carry out
    > HyperScope functions!
    >
    > * Ken's point here, is that XML definition is
    > dictated by functional needs -- by what you
    > need to transmit to provide the desired services,
    > and the resulting XML definition is far removed
    > from any sort of "HyperDocument definition" we
    > may construct at the outset.
    >
    > [Note: From personal experience, I concur
    > wholeheartedly. The orginal stab I took at
    > XML syntax for such a document looks nothing
    > like the node library I am currently constructing.
    > More instructively, none of the last 4 versions
    > of that library look very much like any of the
    > others.]
    >
    > Topic Maps
    > ----------
    > Ken also talked about topic maps for a bit.
    > (Although I have yet to "get" them, Ken was very big
    > on them, and mentioned Jack Park's advocacy several
    > times in this context.)
    >
    > What I gleaned from our short forays into the
    > subject was:
    > * Topic maps provide a way of defining the
    > semantic content of a structure or, perhaps
    > more accurately, it is a way of specifying the
    > syntax that is used to represent different
    > semantic constructs. (I believe that is
    > accurate, although I didn't quite get how
    > it works.
    > More info: http://www.topicmaps.org
    >
    > * Ken suspects we want to use topic maps to
    > define the OHS interchange mechansims.
    > (Again, I don't see how that works, exactly,
    > but I suspect that he and Jack will be
    > able to arrive at a meeting of the minds.)
    >
    > * My one little "aha" on the subject is that
    > if XSLT + a stylesheet can be used as the
    > input to an application, then if the input
    > is defined using a topic map, then anyone
    > can use any syntax they want to encode the
    > data -- the syntax will be transformed by
    > XSLT for use by the application anyway, and
    > that translation will be governed by the
    > topic map. (I think that is somewhere
    > within a Silicon-valley commute of being
    > correct, but...)
    >
    >
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