It's clear from these postings that the WWW system is pretty
sophisticated and has many of the functional attributes one would
expect in a HyTime-based system, including sophisticated query links,
various addressing methods, and so on. I would urge the the WWW folks
to consider recasting the WWW in HyTime terms. By using HyTime
constructs to define hyperlinks and other WWW functions, the WWW
system would become compatible with all other HyTime-conforming
systems. It would, for example, make the WWW able to manage
hyperlinks to and from document in any DTD that used HyTime-compliant
hyperlink elements, meaning, for example, that both OSF-DOC and
IBMIDDoc documents could be integrated into a WWW system without
change to the documents themselves. It's unlikely that I would add
support for WWW-specific link elements that were not HyTime compliant
to IBMIDDoc, but it is highly likely that I would add support for
WWW-specific addressing notations in IBMIDDoc implementations if WWW
used HyTime for hyperlinks.
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