ANN: XML and Databases article

[Steven R. Newcomb]

[Daniel Veillard:]

>    - Show me a definition so that I can understand the term and
>      underlying concept clearly enough that an implementation 
>      time is spend not collecting and reading papers but implemening
>      something well defined.  
>      Even reading http://www.prescod.net/groves/shorttut/ I still can't
>      get a clear definition of "what is a grove precisely".
>      Not at the concept level, but a implementable definition say
>      on top of the XML infoset (for XML documents).

Designs that support the grove concept must not be confused with the
grove concept itself.  "What is a grove precisely" is an abstraction,
not an implementation or an API.  The "clear definition" you want is
the ISO standard itself
(http://www.ornl.gov/sgml/wg8/document/n1920/html/clause-A.4.html).
While it's true that the standard is not a tutorial, and it is
definitely not easy to read, the grove paradigm *is* rigorously
defined there.  There is a glossary at
http://www.ornl.gov/sgml/wg8/document/n1920/html/clause-3.html

>    - Show me the code. Not that there is none, I just don't know.
>      Is there a program available in source code, that I can run
>      on say a laptop in front of a novice (but programmer kind)
>      audience (say a Gnome developper's group) allowing me in 3 mn
>      to show a "grove" in action and what it does for them.

OK.

James Clark's awesome DSSSL engine, JADE, is available in source form:
http://www.jclark.com.  JADE is in production use in industrial
contexts.

Eliot Kimber's PHyLIS was first demonstrated at XML Europe 1998 and
again at XML Developers' Conference '98 in Montreal.  While this is
not an industrial-strength thing, it was the first demonstration of
mixed grove types, with extended ("independent") linking among CGM
components and SGML components.  If you need the source code of an
application that implements the grove paradigm, you can get the source
for PHyLIS at http://www.phylis.com.  PHyLIS also demonstrates some
HyTime stuff.

TechnoTeacher offers an industrial-strength generalized implementation
of the grove paradigm called GroveMinder, which was demonstrated last
February at XTech '99 and again at Metastructures '99 in Montreal.
GroveMinder has a demo which can be used compellingly in the kind of
3-minute fashion you want.  Contact me and I'll put this demo into
your hands (you'll need a password).  The source code of GroveMinder
itself is not publicly available, but the Python souce that comes with
the demo includes the entire demo application, including a couple of
grove-to-HTML formatters and an HTTP server.  You can get a pretty
good idea of the Python API to GroveMinder from this source code, and
the demo itself lets you explore groves interactively.  You can even
change the Python source if you like, to see what happens.  (But the
demo version of GroveMinder is not designed to support application
development, so don't expect it to be easy or convenient to debug your
programs.)  Some of GroveMinder's applications in industrial contexts
were discussed publicly at Metastructures 99.

> Get both, and if you're lucky you will experience the same success
> as linux. In the meantime me and others are still wondering what's
> really behind that 5 letters word !

Fair enough.  Thanks for asking.

-Steve

--
Steven R. Newcomb, President, TechnoTeacher, Inc.
srn at techno.com  http://www.techno.com  ftp.techno.com

voice: +1 972 231 4098
fax    +1 972 994 0087
pager (150 characters max): srn-page at techno.com

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