Re: [Fwd: Uses of DSSSL]

["W. Eliot Kimber" <eliot@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:38 AM 6/27/97 -0400, Vivek Agrawala wrote:
>
>However, SGML can also be used to represent computer programs.
>Then, DSSSL could be used for program analysis & source-to-source
>transformations.  I think Paul mentioned program specifications
>earlier today.  Is anyone else thinking of using DSSSL for this
>type of work?

I created a DTD for VRML source (www.drmacro.com/vrml/) and used Panorama
style sheets to generate working VRML programs.  It would be a matter of
minutes to create the equivalent using DSSSL and the SGML transform back end.

I mentioned doing the same thing for Jade.

As part of the early MID work there was defined a DTD for a generic
programming language (the idea being to represent hypermedia scripts as
SGML documents).  This DTD could be used to create programs that would then
be translatable into a variety of real programming languages.  Don't know
where that DTD got off to (the approach was abandoned for the MID but might
still be useful).

It might also be possible to use shortrefs and/or datatag to parse existing
programs into SGML form (years ago I actually submitted a patent
application on the use of shortref/datatag and explicit link to define
language-to-language transforms--the IBM patent mavens rejected it [the
fools...I'll have my revenge!...ha ha ha ha ha {twisted laughter dies away
as we fade to....}]).

Not sure these are compelling applications of SGML and DSSSL, but they're
at least fun to play with.

I for one see no reason to ever use Perl and NSGMLS again to do
non-formatting transforms of SGML documents.  I can do pretty much
everything want with Jade's SGML transform back end and do it much faster
than with Perl (both in the time it takes to write the code and the time it
takes to run).  I have several such processes lying about that I plan to
re-implement using DSSSL.

Cheers,

E.

--
<Address HyTime=bibloc>
W. Eliot Kimber, Senior Consulting SGML Engineer
Highland Consulting, a division of ISOGEN International Corp.
2200 N. Lamar St., Suite 230, Dallas, TX 95202.  214.953.0004
www.isogen.com
</Address>

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