Questions for Form A

Assume you are to write a dissertation according to a new DTD developed by the Graduate School. Assume that this DTD is comprehensive, covering normal writing, mathematics, and tables. Which of the following schemes do you think would be most reliable in terms of helping you produce a correctly tagged dissertation:
a)
write using plain TeX and then try to translate that to the proper form.
b)
write using LaTeX and then try to translate that to the proper form.
c)
write using Author/Editor and then export the resulting document.
d)
all of the above.
e)
exactly 2 out of choices a through c (which?).
f)
none of the above.

Please briefly justify your answer.

Assume you are writing an article in the area of Computer Science, and that you will prepare the final version according to a widely accepted Document Type Definition for Computer Science articles. List and explain briefly at least three possible products that may arise from this effort. Discuss briefly whether it would be easier or harder to prepare these products from the final version you make, as opposed to a Microsoft Word version of the article. By product is meant some paper or electronic publication or service, as was called for in the 1988 Fox CACM article covered at the start of the semester.

With Lector, you can view an SGML-encoded document, and, for example, just see an outline of that document. Briefly describe how Lector might produce such a view, given the full-text document and a file that indicates presentation information associated with tags. In other words, please sketch briefly the algorithm / processing involved. For example, you might discuss recognizing tags, looking up a tag in the file of presentation information, etc.

Assume you have 4 different word processors in use in a department (i.e., A, B, C, and D), and that it is necessary to translate between documents produced by them. If you take the direct translation approach, how many translators would be needed - please list them. Next assume you have an intermediate form, I. If you take the intermediate approach, how many translators would be needed - please list them. Note: by ``list them'' I mean give the letter for the source and the target for each translator.

Can the Find In Tag operation of SoftQuad's Author/Editor be easily carried out by a standard editor? Why or why not?


fox@cs.vt.edu
Tue Aug 30 03:47:30 EDT 1994