1 Some thoughts on proprietary markup

From ieunet!mcsun!uunet!vnet.IBM.COM 
 Tue Jun  1 15:17:01 BST 1993
Article: 1991 of comp.text.sgml
Path: curia!ieunet!mcsun!uunet!vnet.IBM.COM
From: drmacro@vnet.IBM.COM
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 93 09:31:01 EDT
Newsgroups: comp.text.sgml
Subject: Re: SGML
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, 
            not those of IBM
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   In <9305281237.AA01758@dlgeo.cr.usgs.gov>, 
   mcclanah@dlgeo.cr.usgs.gov writes:

      I have recieved a request from another indivual 
      that I work with about SGML.  Although I support 
      the use of SGML (They want to compare its use 
      with MML from Framemaker) I by no means can explain 
      its benefits over a proprietary markup language 
      [...]

   Ask this person if they would mind if when they bought 
   a car:

      * they could only get gasoline and service from the 
        car maker;

      * if they could only drive it on roads provided by 
        the car maker;

      * and it could only be driven by people who had 
        been trained to drive that particular make and 
        model of car.

   That's what you sign up for when you tie yourself to a
   proprietary data format.

   The mistake people make is that they think what they 
   are creating when they create documents with computers 
   is printed pages, when in fact they are creating 
   databases of information.  You can test this by 
   comparing the cost of losing the printed pages with the 
   cost of losing the source files from which they were 
   generated.

   As Tim Bray pointed out at SGML'92, no MIS manager 
   would in his right mind consider using a proprietary 
   data format for relational information.  So it should 
   be for textual information.

Eliot Kimber      Internet:  drmacro@ralvm13.vnet.ibm.com
Dept E14/B500     IBMMAIL:   USIB2DK9@IBMMAIL
Network Programs Information Development 
Phone: 1-919-254-5160
IBM Corporation
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
      

If you still think visual-only markup is the way to go, read on…

2 …and the last word on visual markup

From bagwill@sst.ncsl.nist.gov (Bob Bagwill)
Subject: Re: SGML considered harmful?
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 20:38:23 GMT
    

John Franks (john@hopf.math.nwu.edu ) wrote:

Fortunately the evolution of HTML seems to be away from the SGML philosophy.

Since SGML is obviously on its way out, I suggest the following markup format for those of us who CARE about the appearance of our documents :-)

\hrule
\vskip 1in
\centerline{I {\bf CARE} about the appearance of my documents}
\vskip 6pt
\centerline{\sl by King Canute}
\vskip .5cm
Once upon a time, in the land of MakeBelieve\dots
\vskip 1in
\hrule
\vfill\eject
\end
    

Personally, I find that this notation lacks precision, and bitmap operators, plus I love reverse Polish notation, so I often create documents like this:

1 0 bop 0 42 1950 2 v 525 370 a Fc(I)14 b Fb(CARE)h 
Fc(ab)q(out)f(the)g(app)q(earance)h(of)e(m)o(y)g(do)
q(cumen)o(ts)798 445 y Fa(b)o(y)g(Ch)o(uc)o(k)h(U.)
g(F)m(arley)83 554 y Fc(Once)h(up)q(on)f(a)g(time,)
e(in)h(the)i(land)e(of)g(Mak)o(eBeliev)o(e...)p 0 
864 V 965 2770 a(1)p eop
    

Of course, sometimes that notation doesn't put the pixels exactly where I want them, so I usually create documents like this:

image
ffffffffffffffffff000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000fffffffffffffffffff
fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffef
8ef1e6657ce39923c633f30c3398cc313f31e124f0ce2409c84
67ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
showpage
    

Bob Bagwill

---

The editor adds: ‘But if you prefer a synchronous typographical interface like Word, you can create documents like this:’

^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@I CARE about 
the appearance of my documents.^M^Mby King Canute^M^MOnce 
upon a time, in the land of MakeBelieve&^T^@¤\201.¥ÅA
¦n^D§n^D¨n^D©n^D\223^@\267
    

‘If you don't see why that's both funny and instructive, then you probably shouldn't be using a computer at all…you'd be better off with a typewriter or a quill pen.’ [Ed]. What you're supposed to be doing is creating documents like this:

<document>
  <title>I CARE about the appearance of my documents</title>
  <author>King Canute</author>
  <para>Once upon a time, in the land of MakeBelieve...</para>
</document>
    

with a stylesheet so it looks like this in your browser:

and like this when printed: