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On Wednesday 26 February 2003 02:31 pm, Alaric B. Snell wrote: > Even if you don't *have* to base your processing around the tree structure, > as SAX doesn't, the tree structure is still there. Only if you interpret it as such. I would argue that documents, in general, *do* have some form of structure in the mind of the author. I would also say that in many cases, that structure, or large parts of it, are understood by the receiver. I don't think you can claim it as an intrinsic part of the data without assuming a model of interpretation. Here's an interesting experiment: take an XML document in all of it's angle-bracketed glory, and show it to a 10-year old that has not been exposed to HTML/XML. Ask them what they see. Do the same thing with a nicely formatted letter. If you feel really ambitious, try that with 100 random bodies you meet in the street.
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