🚀 go-pugleaf

I got this the other day, and I wanted to play with the
toys that it mentions:

>Message-Id: <9207212244.ZM15007@scribe.ora.com>
>Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 22:44:27 -0700
>To: davenport@ora.com
>Subject: ftp site
>
>There is now an Internet archive on ora.com for the Davenport
>Group.  This archive currently contains summaries
>of Davenport Group meetings as well as documents describing the
>efforts of individual working groups.  Highlights include a
>PostScript version of the DASH (Davenport Advisory Standard 
>on Hypermedia, formerly DGDAS).
>
>To access this information, login via anonymous ftp to "ftp.ora.com." 
>Type "cd pub/davenport" to get to the Davenport directory.  A
>complete overview of the group and its recent activity can be
>found in a file named "davenport.intro." 

The archive contains the _OSF Documentation SIG Recommendataions for
the OSF DTD_. This includes some machine readable SGML files, including
an SGML declaration and a few delaration subsets.

I wanted to play around with them, but I couldn't get sgmls to
digest the SGML delaration. First it complained about having
comments before the SGML declaration. Then it complained about
the character sets. Then it said something about only supporting
fuction characters from the reference concrete syntax.

I gotta get me a copy of the standard so I can at least diagnose
errors. Any time the errors leave the scope of computational
linguistics (e.g. "your sequence of tags doesn't match the
grammar...") and enter the world of international data exchange
(e.g. "character 160 not part of the syntax character set"),
I get lost.

I also read the DASH, but I'm not conversant in HyTime, so I
didn't get a lot out of it.

I develop online documentation systems here at convex, and I try
to stay abreast of emerging technologies in the field. One of
my pet projects is developing a DTD that captures the SGML
expressible features of the Convex Style Guide, and interoperates
with _something_ else (the AAP stuff, the QWERTZ project,
the World Wide Web (HTML format), the DASH, the OSF DTD, heck,
even FrameMaker!). I'm not having much luck.

Ever since I heard Douglas Engelbart speak on computer supported
cooperative work, I have kept my ear to the ground for technology
that will support information processing beyond WYSIWYG stuff --
information processing where the computer has knowledge of the
semantics of the information behind the presentation. (I think
some CAD/CAM applications do this kind of thing: the computer
acts as an interface to a database that defines the object under
design. But in addition to the graphic interface, the application
can validate design constraints and simulate/analyze the object.)

This appears to be the emphasis of the OSF Doc SIG DTD. At
least they have done significant work to separate the semantics
from the presentation of the information. Their design is
extensive and makes some interesting abstractions.

Anybody else had a look at the design?

Anybody else have an SGML system that can process documents
that conform to the proposed DTD?

Dan