Re: word processor document format: what parts?

["J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick narkinsky ml org>]

On Sun, 20 Sep 1998, Christopher Curtis wrote:

> I think that this is not the Right Way(tm).  Consider instead:
> 
> <bogusdoc>
> <style bold>
>  <font face=arial points=12 weight=bold>
> </style>
> <style italic>
>  <font face=arial points=12 weight=oblique>
> </style>
> <style bold-italic>
>  <font face=arial points=12 weight=bold,oblique>
> </style>
> 

I have to disagree.  While such an approach could work for a simple case
such as bold-italic, how would it deal with (for example): 
	Nesting Tables Within Tables
	Having a table as part of a list
	Having a graphic inside a table
The list goes on.  There are many operations in word processing that are
fundamentally nested, recursive operations.  

If we took the '<bold-italic></bold-italic>' approach for all the possible
combinations of say, 50 tags, we would be looking at like 50^50
combinations.  (Anyone who really groks probability and such feel free to
correct me).  And that only covers the two tag combinations -- not the
three, four, and five layer deep nesting.  To cover a maximum of 5 layers
of recursion avoiding a recursive approach using a mechanism as outlined
above, we'd be looking at something like ((((50!)!)!)!)!).  My scientific
calculator chokes on this after the 2nd factorial.

One word: ouch.  (Okay, so nesting of some tags doesn't make sense.  But
the point remains).

Furthermore, my impression is that a nested, tree based approach is the
'XML way'.  An edit component which cannot deal with it effectively is not
going to be able to support much of the syntax that XML (and similar
gidgits such as SGML) has to offer. 

Secondly, the above approach might still conceivably work if we were
desiging a single application of XML.  For a lot of reasons (which I have
discussed earlier), I don't think this is what we want to do.  All the
style sheet languages have a requirement to support this kind of tag
within a tag concept. 

Patrick
 
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If we're to have any luck stanching the vain drain, we just have to 
let nerds be nerds...  Owen Edwards, Forbes Magazine
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