RE: Cutting and pasting document components

From: Garold L. Johnson (dynalt@dynalt.com)
Date: Thu Apr 26 2001 - 07:42:29 PDT


This is why refactoring is necessary for foreign entries.
I think the term is "re-purposing".
When we take a document that was constructed as a narrative, the transitions
and context are important to understanding the document. It is linear in the
sense that it was intended to be read from beginning to end, or at least
from beginning to end for a set of sections (chapters). Putting this
information into a modular knowledge system requires restructuring. Larson's
manuals for his hypertext tools spend a fair amount of time talking about
turning the material to be put into the system into a set of "single idea"
blocks with descriptive titles. It is the starting point for incorporating
linear documents into a node based system.
Given better tools for constructing nodes during the creation of
information, we might adapt and create node based documents as easily as
linear ones.
It seems to me that OHS is Open Hyper *Document* System for a reason - much
original information is created as linear documents.
This is a definite part of the transition to non-linear documents. Without
good tools to support the generation of node based documents, we don't have
the opportunity to learn to generate node based documents.
I *still* want a good outliner that can manage nodes and narrative easily!

Thanks,

Garold (Gary) L. Johnson
DYNAMIC Alternatives

Murray Altheim wrote:

"N. C a r r o l l" wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Murray Altheim <altheim@eng.sun.com>
> To: <ohs-dev@bootstrap.org>
>
> [snip]
>
> > I don't really buy into this view of documents, although I recognize
> > that some do. One of our engineers did a fairly comprehensive study
> > of document "components" with an eye on reducing translation costs.
> > Sun localizes its document pool across quite a number of languages,
> > which is very expensive, so the idea was to try to save some money
> > hiring translators.
> >
> > What he found was that the cutting and pasting of such components
> > was frought with difficulty ... [snip]
>
> Any of his conclusions online?

No, this was an internal study done to look into ways of making our
own translation processes more efficient. I don't think it was ever
published outside the company, only presented to management. He's not
in the office today but I'll ask him next time I see him.

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim, SGML/XML Grease Monkey <mailto:altheim@eng.sun.com>
XML Technology Center
Sun Microsystems, 1601 Willow Rd., MS UMPK17-102, Menlo Park, CA 94025

         america was once a paradise
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         but it is dying because of the greed
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