Re: Hypertext links in HTML (fwd)

Ian Graham (igraham@utirc.utoronto.ca)
Wed, 17 May 95 14:40:00 EDT

Forwarded message:

Larry Masinter writes:
>
> > When this discussion first started I rather liked the idea of a formal
> > algebra of relations, in a separate RFC. But after thinking about it a
> > bit longer I have changed my mind. In fact, I no longer see any reason
> > for standardizing more than three REL values!
>
> I'm in favor of a minimalist approach as far as featuritis: it's much
> easier to add features than to remove them later, and I'm especially
> wary of features that have seen no convincing demonstration of
> utility.

YES!

>
> (I'll contrast my minimalist approach to features to my more liberal
> opinion about the importance of getting structural changes right
> earlier than they might be seen in 'common practice'.)

YES!! There are several issues:
* relationships
* the browser rendering of the different relationships
(this will be different for LINK and A)
* browsers *action* when a LINK or anchor is accessed (in terms
of its presentation of the linked object to the user)
* the HTTP method and data encoding scheme used when accessing
the object (I'd say outside the scope of HTML -- but what
about ISINDEX????)
If we can find a separation such as this that helps to break the problem
down, then the solution will be easy.

> I find Bert Bos' de(con)struction of proposed link relations
> appealing. I'm even a little wary of 'TOP' though, without a more
> complete description; if you presume PARENT, CHILD, 'TOP' is where you
> get when PARENT runs out.

There seem to be overlapping schemes of relationships. For example, if
I consider four revisions of the same document, each could be considered
the child of its (older) parent. However, in a heirarchy, a child could be
seen as lying one level under a parent..... So -- this simply means we
need to *define* certain names to have well-defined meanings, and give
complete descriptions (as mentioned above) I don't really care what name
is chosen, so long as I know clearly what it means/implies.

Ian

--
Ian Graham ...................................... igraham@utirc.utoronto.ca
Instructional and Research Computing
University of Toronto