A love affair with markup
Identifieur interne : 000171 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 000170; suivant : 000172A love affair with markup
Auteurs : Michael SeadleSource :
- Library Hi Tech [ 0737-8831 ] ; 2001-09-01.
Abstract
It was not love at first sight when I met my first markup language sometime in the 1980s. But XML is different. It has a rich and flexible tagset that lets it function as a database. It is also starting to have tools that allow Webbased display with standard browsers. Describing XML is not easy, but four aspects seem particularly important separation of data tool development standards and preservation.
Url:
DOI: 10.1108/EUM0000000005886
Links to Exploration step
ISTEX:BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245Le document en format XML
<record><TEI wicri:istexFullTextTei="biblStruct"><teiHeader><fileDesc><titleStmt><title xml:lang="en">A love affair with markup</title><author wicri:is="90%"><name sortKey="Seadle, Michael" sort="Seadle, Michael" uniqKey="Seadle M" first="Michael" last="Seadle">Michael Seadle</name><affiliation><mods:affiliation>Michael Seadle is Editor of Library Hi Tech.</mods:affiliation></affiliation></author></titleStmt><publicationStmt><idno type="wicri:source">ISTEX</idno><idno type="RBID">ISTEX:BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245</idno><date when="2001" year="2001">2001</date><idno type="doi">10.1108/EUM0000000005886</idno><idno type="url">https://api.istex.fr/document/BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245/fulltext/pdf</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Istex/Corpus">000171</idno></publicationStmt><sourceDesc><biblStruct><analytic><title level="a" type="main" xml:lang="en">A love affair with markup</title><author wicri:is="90%"><name sortKey="Seadle, Michael" sort="Seadle, Michael" uniqKey="Seadle M" first="Michael" last="Seadle">Michael Seadle</name><affiliation><mods:affiliation>Michael Seadle is Editor of Library Hi Tech.</mods:affiliation></affiliation></author></analytic><monogr></monogr><series><title level="j">Library Hi Tech</title><idno type="ISSN">0737-8831</idno><imprint><publisher>MCB UP Ltd</publisher><date type="published" when="2001-09-01">2001-09-01</date><biblScope unit="volume">19</biblScope><biblScope unit="issue">3</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" from="207">207</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" to="209">209</biblScope></imprint><idno type="ISSN">0737-8831</idno></series><idno type="istex">BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245</idno><idno type="DOI">10.1108/EUM0000000005886</idno><idno type="filenameID">2380190301</idno><idno type="original-pdf">2380190301.pdf</idno><idno type="href">eum0000000005886.pdf</idno></biblStruct></sourceDesc><seriesStmt><idno type="ISSN">0737-8831</idno></seriesStmt></fileDesc><profileDesc><textClass></textClass><langUsage><language ident="en">en</language></langUsage></profileDesc></teiHeader><front><div type="abstract" xml:lang="en">It was not love at first sight when I met my first markup language sometime in the 1980s. But XML is different. It has a rich and flexible tagset that lets it function as a database. It is also starting to have tools that allow Webbased display with standard browsers. Describing XML is not easy, but four aspects seem particularly important separation of data tool development standards and preservation.</div></front></TEI><istex><corpusName>emerald</corpusName><author><json:item><name>Michael Seadle</name><affiliations><json:string>Michael Seadle is Editor of Library Hi Tech.</json:string></affiliations></json:item></author><subject><json:item><lang><json:string>eng</json:string></lang><value>Computer languages</value></json:item><json:item><lang><json:string>eng</json:string></lang><value>Databases</value></json:item><json:item><lang><json:string>eng</json:string></lang><value>Internet</value></json:item></subject><language><json:string>eng</json:string></language><originalGenre><json:string>e-technical-paper</json:string></originalGenre><abstract>It was not love at first sight when I met my first markup language sometime in the 1980s. But XML is different. It has a rich and flexible tagset that lets it function as a database. It is also starting to have tools that allow Webbased display with standard browsers. Describing XML is not easy, but four aspects seem particularly important separation of data tool development standards and preservation.</abstract><qualityIndicators><score>2.038</score><pdfVersion>1.3</pdfVersion><pdfPageSize>610 x 789 pts</pdfPageSize><refBibsNative>false</refBibsNative><keywordCount>3</keywordCount><abstractCharCount>405</abstractCharCount><pdfWordCount>1210</pdfWordCount><pdfCharCount>7292</pdfCharCount><pdfPageCount>3</pdfPageCount><abstractWordCount>69</abstractWordCount></qualityIndicators><title>A love affair with markup</title><genre><json:string>other</json:string></genre><host><volume>19</volume><publisherId><json:string>lht</json:string></publisherId><pages><last>209</last><first>207</first></pages><issn><json:string>0737-8831</json:string></issn><issue>3</issue><subject><json:item><value>Information & knowledge management</value></json:item><json:item><value>Information & communications technology</value></json:item><json:item><value>Internet</value></json:item><json:item><value>Library & information science</value></json:item><json:item><value>Information behaviour & retrieval</value></json:item><json:item><value>Librarianship/library management</value></json:item><json:item><value>Information user studies</value></json:item><json:item><value>Metadata</value></json:item><json:item><value>Library technology</value></json:item></subject><genre><json:string>journal</json:string></genre><language><json:string>unknown</json:string></language><title>Library Hi Tech</title><doi><json:string>10.1108/lht</json:string></doi></host><publicationDate>2001</publicationDate><copyrightDate>2001</copyrightDate><doi><json:string>10.1108/EUM0000000005886</json:string></doi><id>BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245</id><score>0.24233817</score><fulltext><json:item><original>true</original><mimetype>application/pdf</mimetype><extension>pdf</extension><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245/fulltext/pdf</uri></json:item><json:item><original>false</original><mimetype>application/zip</mimetype><extension>zip</extension><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245/fulltext/zip</uri></json:item><istex:fulltextTEI uri="https://api.istex.fr/document/BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245/fulltext/tei"><teiHeader><fileDesc><titleStmt><title level="a" type="main" xml:lang="en">A love affair with markup</title></titleStmt><publicationStmt><authority>ISTEX</authority><publisher>MCB UP Ltd</publisher><availability><p>EMERALD</p></availability><date>2001</date></publicationStmt><sourceDesc><biblStruct type="inbook"><analytic><title level="a" type="main" xml:lang="en">A love affair with markup</title><author><persName><forename type="first">Michael</forename><surname>Seadle</surname></persName><affiliation>Michael Seadle is Editor of Library Hi Tech.</affiliation></author></analytic><monogr><title level="j">Library Hi Tech</title><idno type="pISSN">0737-8831</idno><idno type="DOI">10.1108/lht</idno><imprint><publisher>MCB UP Ltd</publisher><date type="published" when="2001-09-01"></date><biblScope unit="volume">19</biblScope><biblScope unit="issue">3</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" from="207">207</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" to="209">209</biblScope></imprint></monogr><idno type="istex">BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245</idno><idno type="DOI">10.1108/EUM0000000005886</idno><idno type="filenameID">2380190301</idno><idno type="original-pdf">2380190301.pdf</idno><idno type="href">eum0000000005886.pdf</idno></biblStruct></sourceDesc></fileDesc><profileDesc><creation><date>2001</date></creation><langUsage><language ident="en">en</language></langUsage><abstract xml:lang="en"><p>It was not love at first sight when I met my first markup language sometime in the 1980s. But XML is different. It has a rich and flexible tagset that lets it function as a database. It is also starting to have tools that allow Webbased display with standard browsers. Describing XML is not easy, but four aspects seem particularly important separation of data tool development standards and preservation.</p></abstract><textClass><keywords scheme="keyword"><list><head>Keywords</head><item><term>Computer languages</term></item><item><term>Databases</term></item><item><term>Internet</term></item></list></keywords></textClass><textClass><keywords scheme="Emerald Subject Group"><list><label>cat-IKM</label><item><term>Information & knowledge management</term></item><label>cat-ICT</label><item><term>Information & communications technology</term></item><label>cat-INT</label><item><term>Internet</term></item></list></keywords></textClass><textClass><keywords scheme="Emerald Subject Group"><list><label>cat-LISC</label><item><term>Library & information science</term></item><label>cat-IBRT</label><item><term>Information behaviour & retrieval</term></item><label>cat-LLM</label><item><term>Librarianship/library management</term></item><label>cat-IUS</label><item><term>Information user studies</term></item><label>cat-MTD</label><item><term>Metadata</term></item><label>cat-LTC</label><item><term>Library technology</term></item></list></keywords></textClass></profileDesc><revisionDesc><change when="2001-09-01">Published</change></revisionDesc></teiHeader></istex:fulltextTEI><json:item><original>false</original><mimetype>text/plain</mimetype><extension>txt</extension><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245/fulltext/txt</uri></json:item></fulltext><metadata><istex:metadataXml wicri:clean="corpus emerald not found" wicri:toSee="no header"><istex:xmlDeclaration>version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"</istex:xmlDeclaration><istex:document><!-- Auto generated NISO JATS XML created by Atypon out of MCB DTD source files. Do Not Edit! --><article dtd-version="1.0" xml:lang="en" article-type="e-technical-paper"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">lht</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="doi">10.1108/lht</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Library Hi Tech</journal-title></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="ppub">0737-8831</issn><publisher><publisher-name>MCB UP Ltd</publisher-name></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1108/EUM0000000005886</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="original-pdf">2380190301.pdf</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="filename">2380190301</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="type-of-publication"><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">e-technical-paper</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Technical paper</compound-subject-part></compound-subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="subject"><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-IKM</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Information & knowledge management</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><subj-group><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-ICT</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Information & communications technology</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><subj-group><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-INT</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Internet</compound-subject-part></compound-subject></subj-group></subj-group></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="subject"><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-LISC</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Library & information science</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><subj-group><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-IBRT</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Information behaviour & retrieval</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><subj-group><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-IUS</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Information user studies</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-MTD</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Metadata</compound-subject-part></compound-subject></subj-group></subj-group><subj-group><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-LLM</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Librarianship/library management</compound-subject-part></compound-subject><subj-group><compound-subject><compound-subject-part content-type="code">cat-LTC</compound-subject-part><compound-subject-part content-type="label">Library technology</compound-subject-part></compound-subject></subj-group></subj-group></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>A love affair with markup</article-title></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author"><string-name><given-names>Michael</given-names> <surname>Seadle</surname></string-name><aff>Michael Seadle is Editor of <italic>Library Hi Tech</italic>.</aff></contrib></contrib-group><pub-date pub-type="ppub"><day>01</day><month>09</month><year>2001</year></pub-date><volume>19</volume><issue>3</issue><fpage>207</fpage><lpage>209</lpage><permissions><copyright-statement>© MCB UP Limited</copyright-statement><copyright-year>2001</copyright-year><license license-type="publisher"><license-p></license-p></license></permissions><self-uri content-type="pdf" xlink:href="eum0000000005886.pdf"></self-uri><abstract><p>It was not love at first sight when I met my first markup language sometime in the 1980s. But XML is different. It has a rich and flexible tag‐set that lets it function as a database. It is also starting to have tools that allow Web‐based display with standard browsers. Describing XML is not easy, but four aspects seem particularly important: separation of data; tool development; standards; and preservation.</p></abstract><kwd-group><kwd>Computer languages</kwd><x>, </x><kwd>Databases</kwd><x>, </x><kwd>Internet</kwd></kwd-group><custom-meta-group><custom-meta><meta-name>peer-reviewed</meta-name><meta-value>no</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>academic-content</meta-name><meta-value>yes</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>rightslink</meta-name><meta-value>included</meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-group></article-meta></front><body><p>It was not love at first sight when I met my first markup language sometime in the 1980s. I believe the language was Script from the University of Waterloo in Canada. It was powerful, but seemed cumbersome to someone already accustomed to the word‐processing delights of Wordstar on the Osborne 1. Some years later the Web made its appearance and I renewed my acquaintance with markup languages. I greeted markup as an old acquaintance, but thought of HTML mainly as a pretty face, a way to format documents for screen display. It showed little intellectual substance for data‐handling, and seemed like a better match for those who really cared about bit‐depth beauty. I flirted mildly with HTML when Meta‐tags gave it a way to offer structured bibliographic information. I was definitely not in love.</p><p>Then my work brought me in contact with Standard Generalized Markup language (SGML) and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Document Type Definition (DTD). If HTML seemed lightweight, the tag‐set for SGML TEI seemed distinctly overweight. TEI had an astonishingly complete tag‐set for marking elements in a literary text at a level of complexity that would challenge most database systems, but no Web‐browser would ask it to dance. Without special software like Panorama, SGML could not be seen at all. SGML was a matronly wallflower at the Internet Ball, and like a good matron, SGML introduced me to her youngest daughter, XML (eXtensible Markup Language).</p><p>XML is different. It has a rich and flexible tag‐set that lets it function as a database, but also is starting to have tools that allow Web‐based display with standard browsers. This gives it an unusual potential for combining intellectual complexity with easy access. XML is still young and relatively unknown. Nonetheless companies like Microsoft have taken an interest in it, and library utilities like OCLC have adopted XML as the base for its Dublin Core initiative. Browsers like Internet Explorer 5 can render some XML directly. XML has many admirers especially within the digital library community. At the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (25‐27 June 2001) in Roanoke, Virginia, someone referred to XML in virtually every session. Suddenly, it matters.</p><p>Describing XML is not easy. The danger lies in leaving out aspects because so much development is going on today. Four aspects seem particularly important:</p><list list-type="order"><list-item><label>(1) </label><p>separation of data; </p></list-item><list-item><label>(2) </label><p>tool development; </p></list-item><list-item><label>(3) </label><p>standards; and </p></list-item><list-item><label>(4) </label><p>preservation.</p></list-item></list><sec><title>Separation of data</title><p>A key feature of XML is that it separates data from its manipulation and display, which can be handled by XSL (eXtensible Style Language) and a variety of other tools. XML‐authors can create new tags, either by modifying an existing DTD, or by writing a new DTD, or even by creating an XML document with no DTD or Schema to validate against. The tags can have any name in any language, and can have complex relationships with each other, including parent‐child dependencies and repeating or unique elements. The tags can enclose any type of data, including sentences, paragraphs, random words, numeric data, even bitstreams that represent images, sound, or video. Tags can also have attributes – among the most important of these relate a particular tag to external systems: for example, the “” tag in Encoded Archival Description (EAD), which can be used to match EAD tags to MARC (MAchine Readable Cataloging) fields. This means that XML can function as a database, with all of the same kinds of relationships that are possible in a powerful relational database. But it is a database with only data:</p> <list list-type="bullet"><list-item><label>• </label><p>data about the data‐relationships within the DTD and the attributes; and</p></list-item><list-item><label>• </label><p>the data itself enclosed within the tags.</p></list-item></list></sec><sec><title>Tool development</title><p>XML requires tools precisely because XML files contains only data. Three types of tools are being developed. The first are editing tools. Since XML is just data, any data‐entry environment can produce valid XML. It can be created using simple standard editors or ordinary commercial wordprocessors, as well as highly specialized tools that allow continuous validation against a DTD in order to prevent anyone from entering a specialized tag in an inappropriate location. Validation tools can also be run externally, and, of course, multiple editors can be used.</p><p>Exchange Rate Politics in Latin AmericaThe second type of tools are for display. In a strict sense, these tools are unnecessary, because XML tags usually give a clear verbal indication of their meaning. It is possible to read a novel marked up in XML TEI by opening it in a wordprocessor. It will not look pretty, and the more detailed the markup, the more tolerance a reader will need. Recently XSL has provided a standard way to display particular fields with particular fonts in a particular place on the computer screen. And server‐side programs like Cocoon (see Hancock and Giarlo, this issue) make it possible to display XML on all browsers by rendering it on the fly in HTML.</p><p>The third type of tool is for extraction. One is XSLT (XSL‐Transformation), which can select particular fields based on tags and if‐then logic. More often those who want to manipulate XML still load it (temporarily) into databases, or write simple programs to process it. Indexing tools are also becoming more widely available to give direct access to particular locations in particular files.</p></sec><sec><title>Standards</title><p>The standards that define XML seem relatively stable. Standards that support shared meanings for particular tags are growing in importance. For example, the Dublin Core (DC) tag set is deliberately limited so that it can function as a simple, practical way of describing digital resources without the cost of full MARC cataloging. But people use DC for a wide range of types of materials, and in a wide variety of ways. Some people enclose whole paragraphs of information inside a tag meant (in the view of some) to give a one or two line title. A DTD can validate the relationship among tags, but the data that exists between the tags has no external validation tool. One person’s long, careful, detailed, description may be another’s garbage because the verbosity renders it unusable. Contents standards develop slowly, even when growing out of existing standards for related metadata. Yuen <italic>et al.</italic> (this issue) talk about how “information searching becomes more efficient and effective” with proper standards. Broad agreement is fundamental to genuine interoperability between Internet resources.</p></sec><sec><title>Preservation</title><p>XML aids preservation for two reasons: it is pure data, and the data is mainly in readable ASCII characters. One of the common arguments for microfilm as a preservation medium has been that can be read with nothing more sophisticated than a magnifying glass. In a sense, the same is true for XML. Essentially every existing computer can open essentially any XML file in essentially any file editor. Such file editors are at least as ubiquitous on today’s computers as magnifying glasses are in the desks of the over‐50 crowd (I never had one in my pre‐bifocal youth). The information inside XML files does not vanish with new releases of proprietary software packages. The version migration issues become far more tractable, because they depend only on the stability of XML itself.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>End‐users on the Internet do not love XML yet. They have an ongoing infatuation with HTML, and may remain with HTML for some time, since it represents the lowest common denominator for access with existing Web‐navigation tools. This will change first for people who want to get information from complex databases, because of the interoperability issues that XML helps to address. Will XML become the lingua franca of Internet metadata? It may, in a few years, if the current level of interest among researchers and commercial developers persists.</p></sec></body></article></istex:document></istex:metadataXml><mods version="3.6"><titleInfo lang="en"><title>A love affair with markup</title></titleInfo><titleInfo type="alternative" lang="en" contentType="CDATA"><title>A love affair with markup</title></titleInfo><name type="personal"><namePart type="given">Michael</namePart><namePart type="family">Seadle</namePart><affiliation>Michael Seadle is Editor of Library Hi Tech.</affiliation></name><typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource><genre type="other" displayLabel="e-technical-paper"></genre><originInfo><publisher>MCB UP Ltd</publisher><dateIssued encoding="w3cdtf">2001-09-01</dateIssued><copyrightDate encoding="w3cdtf">2001</copyrightDate></originInfo><language><languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b">eng</languageTerm><languageTerm type="code" authority="rfc3066">en</languageTerm></language><physicalDescription><internetMediaType>text/html</internetMediaType></physicalDescription><abstract lang="en">It was not love at first sight when I met my first markup language sometime in the 1980s. But XML is different. It has a rich and flexible tagset that lets it function as a database. It is also starting to have tools that allow Webbased display with standard browsers. Describing XML is not easy, but four aspects seem particularly important separation of data tool development standards and preservation.</abstract><subject><genre>keywords</genre><topic>Computer languages</topic><topic>Databases</topic><topic>Internet</topic></subject><relatedItem type="host"><titleInfo><title>Library Hi Tech</title></titleInfo><genre type="journal">journal</genre><subject><genre>Emerald Subject Group</genre><topic authority="SubjectCodesPrimary" authorityURI="cat-IKM">Information & knowledge management</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-ICT">Information & communications technology</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-INT">Internet</topic></subject><subject><genre>Emerald Subject Group</genre><topic authority="SubjectCodesPrimary" authorityURI="cat-LISC">Library & information science</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-IBRT">Information behaviour & retrieval</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-LLM">Librarianship/library management</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-IUS">Information user studies</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-MTD">Metadata</topic><topic authority="SubjectCodesSecondary" authorityURI="cat-LTC">Library technology</topic></subject><identifier type="ISSN">0737-8831</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID">lht</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1108/lht</identifier><part><date>2001</date><detail type="volume"><caption>vol.</caption><number>19</number></detail><detail type="issue"><caption>no.</caption><number>3</number></detail><extent unit="pages"><start>207</start><end>209</end></extent></part></relatedItem><identifier type="istex">BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1108/EUM0000000005886</identifier><identifier type="filenameID">2380190301</identifier><identifier type="original-pdf">2380190301.pdf</identifier><identifier type="href">eum0000000005886.pdf</identifier><accessCondition type="use and reproduction" contentType="copyright">© MCB UP Limited</accessCondition><recordInfo><recordContentSource>EMERALD</recordContentSource></recordInfo></mods></metadata><enrichments><json:item><type>refBibs</type><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245/enrichments/refBibs</uri></json:item></enrichments><serie></serie></istex></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
EXPLOR_STEP=$WICRI_ROOT/Wicri/Ticri/explor/TeiVM2/Data/Istex/Corpus
HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_STEP/biblio.hfd -nk 000171 | SxmlIndent | more
Ou
HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_AREA/Data/Istex/Corpus/biblio.hfd -nk 000171 | SxmlIndent | more
Pour mettre un lien sur cette page dans le réseau Wicri
{{Explor lien
|wiki= Wicri/Ticri
|area= TeiVM2
|flux= Istex
|étape= Corpus
|type= RBID
|clé= ISTEX:BC4F4197B11B8A1637DA95400338F8965009E245
|texte= A love affair with markup
}}
| This area was generated with Dilib version V0.6.31. |  |