Re: LYNX-DEV Internal MIME types

[Klaus Weide]

On Mon, 28 Apr 1997, Christopher R. Maden wrote:

> [Klaus Weide]
> > Why is it advantageous to build and keep in memory a whole document
> > in premasticated (parsed) form?  Specifically, for a program like
> > Lynx.  Is parsing such an expensive process?
> 
> No, but one of the big advantages of a rich markup like XML is the
> ability to apply different stylesheets to the same document to present
> different views of the information.  Storing an abstract
> representation of the data, instead of Lynx's current habit of storing
> the screen representation, allows re-application of a stylesheet to
> generate a different screen view without re-fetching the document.
> (Parsing is not necessarily expensive, but fetching can be.)

If parsing is not expensive, the same effect (avoiding re-fetch) can be
had with a cache of the raw data.  So I don't think the advantage here
is enough to generate "excitement".  It probably has more to do with
sharing the data structure (the "tools" you also mentioned), and with
reuse of code?

Also, have you considered that such a stored structure would need some 
rules about its "cache" aspects?  I.e. does it expire, when does it have
to be flushed.  A "normal" cache of raw data from the network might be
better with those things.

[...]
> > What useful things would those (hypothetical?) tools do for Lynx
> > users?
> 
> A Web speech renderer written on top of the DOM interface would be
> useful to blind users with access only to Lynx and not to GUI
> browsers, to dredge up one example.
> 
> > How does it further the goals of the Web *Access* Initiative?
> 
> Access first needs information to access.  DOM provides more
> information about a document to which one can have access.

But somebody still needs to provide the information *in* the document,
in a usable format.  HTML already does a reasonable job of saying "This IS
a picture (but you cannot see it)".  With XML people can write  
<image-of-a-puppy>, instead of <img>.  But there must be something more...

I think this is relying heavily on authoring tools and that they will do
the right thing, right?

> > [  And I hope it is not a way to drag us all into an Internet-wide
> >    "Share your preference folder with our sponsors!" initiative...  ]
> 
> I'm not sure what that means.  The WAI is sponsored by the

Not about the RAI, but about these standardized "Object Models".
Just an ill-expressed, and vague, concern that they have something
to do with technologies that want to make the whole Internet one large
desktop (but the client loses control over what data are exchanged, and
user loses control over client).

Thanks for your replies.

   Klaus





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