RE: Scheme Programming Reference

Subject: RE: Scheme Programming Reference
From: Pieter Rijken <pieter.rijken@xxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 15:02:49 +0200
Hi Didier,

> Peter said:
> I totally agree. The sections on scheme, the transformation and
> style language as well as the concept flow object are quite clear
> and nice to read. But section 9.6 on the property set of DSSSL is
> horrible. I find this section very very hard to read. This is
> surprising since this particular section is on what a grove is and
> how it is organised into classes, elements, nodes, etc. In my opinion
> this section is the most important section of DSSSL, for all remaining
> sections build on the concept of a grove.
> 
> Speaking for myself, I find DSSSL is very rich and not too difficult.
> Both the Scheme part and Flow Object part are rather easy to learn.
> The part of DSSSL which took a very long time to get a hold on, is the
> part on groves and the property set.
> 
> Didier says:
> Is a text on groves and property set be something to include 
> in the OpenJade
> home page? Paul Prescod wrote something on this. I could 
> include it on the
> page.
> 
> ref: http://www.prescod.net/groves/shorttut/
> 

This document seems to contain valuable information on groves.
I think this is just the information I wasn't able to find!

> Groves are part of my knowledge specialty, I worked in a 
> research center
> several years on stuff based on the whole-part paradigm, so 
> grovse are for
> me known territories (and how they relate to other whole-part 
> structures
> like for instance directory services). If I write a text on 
> groves, would
> this be useful? What kind of information do you expect to get. Or said
> differently, what do you want to know about groves?

What I was trying to say was that I believe DSSSL is a very powerfull and
beautifull language! But if one wants to promote DSSSL and make it
more accessable to new users, I believe an explanation of groves is
necessary.
This will make the transformation and query language part of DSSSL as well
as the scheme procedure node-list-reduce, children, parent, subtree, origin
more clear.

I must admit that the first and only document I used to try to learn
DSSSL and Scheme from was the DSSSL standard itself!
As far as a I understand it now, groves are not really part of DSSSL but
are used by DSSSL. I encountered the grove concept also in HyTime, so
I suspect that groves are a general concept used by SGML, HyTime, and DSSSL.
As such I understand why the section on groves in the DSSSL standard is
short: it assumes knowledge of groves.

But nevertheless an introduction and explanation of groves will help
in understanding and using DSSSL.

pieter


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