On Friday, July 30, 2004, at 09:09 PM, Troy Rollins wrote:
Very interesting. You certainly are quite the evangelist for the merits of pull-parsing. I read the reference docs, but I have to admit, I'm not the parsing method connoisseur I suppose I should be. I've always used the "whatever works" approach. To that end, I've used both DOM and SAX, and rolled-my-own in other instances. I'm still not positive I'd know when to say "this needs a pull-parser!" Nor can I claim to fully understand all the benefits and efficiencies of MTML, fortunately, I doubt I am alone in that. ;-)
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Troy
Troy,
What I'm proposing in this feature request is not really a complete pull-parser. It's the speedy engine behind rapid development of high speed custom parsers that can be used to create the object modal type pull-parser or the fragment type modal, my invention type. Imagine extracting XML records into separate record objects but leaving the internal XML markup for each record still intact for later. This would be seen as fragments of the fuller XML data. MTML, as an XML like structure, is rule based. It is not validated or requiring well formedness to work properly, hence the need for custom parsing.
MTML can be an XML data structure but it can also be an extensible markup extension to HTML and for the purpose of gathering common text fragments from HTML. For example I have been running experiments on various versions of a directory of Gestalt Psychology practitioners from around the world. The data is meant to be rendered by its Rev style HTML in a field object. So it reads like a web page. Powerful search tools allows the user to find specific information from the full document in order to find a Psychologist or Therapist in their area that handles their specific issues. In a single search they can gather all that fit their request and display just the information that they were interested in finding. So what you have is a browser window that displays text and images, plays video and sound files, and can have extensible markup added to it by the user while viewing it. If the user wishes to add relational connections that make convenient recollection of important information available the use of the human readable extensibility is seamlessly added to the background HTML and is savable. What really floated my pirate ship was I added the internet and created four custom MTML hyperlinks that allows the user to click on links to MTML files on the internet and / or open them as the new file or merge them with the existing current file. So website developers can offer pre-tagged MTML files that have the relational text gathering power already built into their presentations. The other two MTML links are keyword searches of traditional websites and MTML embedded into the code of an existing HTML webpage. I found out that Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator ignore MTML in the HTML and render it just fine.
So in conclusion MTML is not really a substitute for XML but it does tend to fill the promise of a simpler XML if so structured that way. It's most powerful feature is in the fact that it is meant to be added to common readable text as a background tool that is not seen.
Mark
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