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On Fri, 2012-11-16 at 15:38 +0100, Hermann Stamm-Wilbrandt wrote: > Would you agree that this is an application then? The application, in the software sense, is totally different to what is/was meant by "SGML application" or "XML application." Sure, you wrote an application, and it used XML. It used at least two XML vocabulariwes - the XSLT XML application and your XML data application - to build a software application. The concepts are different. Think of "XML application" as meaning "an application of XML technologies to define a class of documents" and "software application" as "something that does something." You can build a software application with XML technologies, yes. When you do so, you're generally using several "XML Applications." The XSLT processor is not an XML application in thta sense - the design of XSLT itself, the specification at www.w3.org, plus the schema, that's the XML Application. This confusing use of the word "application" is why I don't like the "XML Application and "SGML Application" terminology - terminology that takes a widely-used word or term and gives it an essentially unrelated meaning is obfuscatory.] Here's the formal definition: [[ 4.269 SGML application: Rules thta apply SGML to a text processing application. An SGML application includes a formal specification of the markup constructs used in the [SGML] application, expressed in SGML. It can also include a non-SGML definition of semantics, application conventions, and/or processing. ]] See e.g. page 126 of the SGML Handbook. I don't have a zero-dollar reference, sorry. Following notes in the SGLM specification explain that the SGML applications includes the DTD, entity sets, and possible a concrete syntax and/or capacity set (i.e. SGML declaration), and goes on to talk about "the formal application of an SGML application" being the marked-up documents. It then says, [[ An SGML application exists independently of any implementation. However, if processing is defined by the application, the non-SGML definition should include application procedures, implemented in a programming or text processing language. ]] At that point the SGML application expands to include processing of the marked-up text file. This last note is both confusing and misguided, as it's suggesting a reference implementation rather than a specification in a world where interopability and avoiding single-implementation lock-in is the major objective! But I enclose it here for completeness. The SGML application, then, is the marked up document, and possibly software that process it, taken as a whole, but it is from the point of view of the document, not the software. Your program is an application of XML technologies, and it is a software application, and if you have defined a DTD for the input, it is *also* an XML application. I hope that's clearer. Or maybe others can chime in and say I've misread the SGML definition, that's fine too, although at least I think we can all agree it's a confusing terminology. Best, Liam -- Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/ Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/ Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml
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