Re: LINKs

Bob Stayton <bobs@sco.com>
From: Bob Stayton <bobs@sco.com>
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To: maler@zk3.dec.com
Subject: Re: LINKs
Cc: lou@vax.ox.ac.uk, www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:52:27 PDT
Message-id: <9308111152.aa01188@scotty.sco.COM>
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Status: RO
> From: "Eve Maler, UNIX Software Publications" <maler@zk3.dec.com>
> 
> I do wonder, however, why every last piece of a document needs to be
> made accessible separately.  Not everything can be written modularly
> down to the last paragraph, and sometimes subtrees should simply travel
> together.  In the terms of Bob's example, why was that fictitious
> section at level 3?  Would it make any sense if someone were to read it
> without reading all the levels above?  If not, either it shouldn't be
> accessible all by itself or it should be rewritten to be in less need
> of its context.

I don't think every last piece does need to be made
accessible separately. You are right, not everything can be
written in a modular fashion. It requires a conscious
design on the part of the author.  The author must know
what levels will define topics and provide context where
necessary. For that reason, it cannot be done automatically
by, say, a server.  Many topics could have subsections
contained in them.  In that particular example, the
document is large and deep enough so that the <S3> could
stand alone, and it might contain <S4> section within the
file. Shorter documents might only make sense chunked at
the <S2> level.

All I was asking for is author *control* over how the
hierarchy gets broken up and reassembled.

bobs