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It has been claimed that descriptive markup helps make documents both more
portable and more maintainable. Is that true? Please explain each of these
two claims, briefly.
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University Microfilms International (UMI) has proposed that interchange
of dissertations could be done by creating computer page images for
existing documents, say by scanning them and using CCITT Group 4
compression. Give two reasons why interchange might be better if a
DTD were followed, and SGML marked-up documents were used. Give
two reasons why the UMI scheme might be better. Explain each reason,
briefly.
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SGML supports bracketted attribute grammars, where content elements
can be ordered or have free ordering. Prepare a brief BNF-like
grammar for documents of type memo, where the exclamation
mark (!) indicates that order is unimportant (i.e., having X ! Y
means that we can have either X Y or Y X). Assume that memos have
Header elements that can occur in any order: From, To, Subject, Date.
Assume also that a memo has a Date, Header, and Body where the Body
is made up of paragraphs. Assume that the element Text is pre-defined.
In addition to the grammar, please mention some attributes that might be
attached to Memo. [Hint: consider security and version/status.]
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Given tables that indicate what type of presentation is suitable for each
element in an SGML-encoded document, and having the sgmls tool
available, describe briefly how you would develop a tool like Lector. Do
not worry about having to page backwards.
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The sgmlsasp tool supports substitutions and so can be used in
connection with translations. Is that capability adequate for, say,
mapping between troff and LaTeX? Why or why not?