Background on DSSSL

[Ralph Ferris <ralph@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

I'm encouraged by the response generated by my message "Scheme Programming
Reference." It is clear that there's an agreed need for better
documentation and some good ideas for what form that documentation should
take. I'll add some observations of my own in another message. In this
message, I'll reply to Paul Tyson's question (Wed, 23 Jun 1999):

> is there any chance someone can collect information from members of the
> ISO working group that created DSSSL?  This, together with minutes and
> records of the working group, would provide some fascinating background.

Be advised that key members of the ISO DSSSL WG are now in that same role
in the W3C XSL WG. Since these folks chose to abandon their first child in
the woods, their cooperation in providing background for this list isn't
likely to be forthcoming. I can, however, provide a few details myself:

- The first draft of DSSSL was written several years ago by Paula
Angerstein. That effort went on for maybe three years. I myself attended
presentations on this first version given by Sharon Adler and Anders
Berglund in the early (19)90s. These came with the caveat that "everything
was subject to change." They had that right.

- The early version was eventually abandoned, Paula left and James Clark
joined the project. (Which came first and whether this was cause and effect
is unknown to me. Someone else may be able to fill in this point.)

- The "new" DSSSL that emerged defined, among other things, its own query
language. This created a problem with the HyTime WG, as HyTime already had
a query language of its own: HyQ. A war ensued that went on for quite a
while, but ultimately the two sides came together.

- The results of the cooperation between the DSSSL and HyTime work groups
was a common query language: Standard Document Query Language - SDQL. More
significant than the query language itself, though, was the recognition of
the need for a common "data model" that both DSSSL and HyTime could operate
on. The outcome was the SGML Property Set, which was added to the DSSSL
standard. 

- HyTime itself required an additional property set, built on top of the
SGML Property Set. This work took at very long time to complete. In the
process though, the very important concept of groves was developed. That
concept too was folded back into DSSSL.

The next step would have been to go further with DSSSL/HyTime
"cooperation", addressing in particular the - still much discussed -
question of what is specified in a "style" sheet vs what information comes
from the DTD and the "architecture" on which the DTD may be based. 

We had reached this point in late 1996, when I showed "HyBrick" for the
first time at the ISO meeting that preceded SGML '96. Of course, SGML '96
is where the organization of the XML effort was first announced publically ...


Best regards,
 
Ralph E. Ferris
HyBrick Program Manager
Fujitsu Software Corporation
HyBrick: http://www.fsc.fujitsu.com/hybrick/



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