Standardizing new HTML features

mcharity@hq.lcs.mit.edu (Mitchell N Charity)
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 21:51:54 EDT
From: mcharity@hq.lcs.mit.edu (Mitchell N Charity)
Message-id: <9304280151.AA00452@hq.LCS.MIT.EDU>
To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
In-reply-to: Marc Andreessen's message of Tue, 27 Apr 93 18:09:42 -0500 <9304272309.AA08657@wintermute.ncsa.uiuc.edu>
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Subject: Standardizing new HTML features
Reply-To: mcharity@lcs.mit.edu

Marc Andreessen writes:
>Plus, this is hypertext -- most times, generic inclusions shouldn't be
>per se necessary, or even necessarily useful compared to a hyperlink.

(Someone will shortly begin firing 22 caliber rounds into my office[1],
 so I will leave this verbose.)

Claim:
  Textual inclusion is a fundamental indirection/abstraction mechanism,
  required if www is to scale in volume and duration.

Argument:
 1 Inlining of dynamic/living documents is needed.
 2 This can be done at server or at client.
 3 You sometimes(often?) dont want to do it at server.

Elaboration:
 1. What happens if you cant inline dynamic information?
    Options:
      - Copying, and then either maintaining consistency or
                                 accepting obsolence.
      - Hyperlinking to it, even when you need it in flow of the doc.
      - Doing both, and push the burden onto the human.
      - Giving up.
 2. ...
 3. ...

Mumbles:
  I have fuzzy recollection of a cern doc which mentions brewster at
TMC in cambridge.  He switches jobs.  Does tim 1- leave it outdated
(print model), 2- hand edit it every time brewster moves (toy system
model), or what?
  What if I wish to inline think.com's phone number or mailing address?
  Suppose I write a living document criticizing unix.  To illustrate
my point, I wish to quote some single FAQ entry.  Do I 1- copy it, thus
losing the benefit of improvements to the FAQ, 2- point to it, forcing
me to use a document structuring I didnt want, 3- periodically hand
edit it (not), 4- have an agent edit it, n- or what?
  Can I create a composite document with out either losing consistency
or looking like a gopher menu?
  Inlining, by virtue of making the web representation more powerful,
might be used to address other problems.
Caching might be addressed by something (remotely) like
<A HREF=<INLINE HREF="http://wwwnamed-host/cern-cache">/pub/mumble>cern</A>.
WWW cache inheretence then follows the DNS hierarchy.

Must go.

Clarification:
 [1] Ceiling lights being rehung from concrete.