How SGML’s Modular Organization Promotes Worldwide Learning

SGML enables the World Wide Web to be the perfect teacher for the curious student. It tells you whatever you want to know. It doesn’t reproach you for looking at subject matter for which you have no preparation. If you want to dive into quantum mechanics, you’re free to click a URL that takes you into the thick of it.

You can take university courses over the Net or learn how to make a shepherd’s pie. No matter how diverse your interests are, you can find something about them on the Net, which is really one big, informal classroom.

Pick one of your favorite subjects that is not computer-related. Suppose that you are into tennis. Use a search utility to do a Web search. Chances are that many of the sites you find did not exist a few months ago. That’s how fast the Net is growing.

This explosive growth would not be possible without SGML’s modular structuring of information. When you confine information to people who can access a linear source of information, you limit the amount of interaction and document sharing that’s possible between users. SGML’s use of structural modules of documents allows extremely flexible information interchange.

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Note:  
Being able to ask obscure questions out of left field never was easy. There was the Eliza program of the late 1970s, but it was anybody’s guess as to how meaningful its answer would be.

With so many computers connected and sharing modular information databases, you can experience a modern Eliza. Any Web search utility can overload you with links to more sites than you ever wanted to know about anything. That’s the power of modular information.

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From Here…

This chapter has described the thinking behind the information revolution in terms of modular data organization. Because SGML forces documents to be structured into identifiable modules, computers can locate information quickly and promote global cooperation and collaboration on many different projects, such as Hyper-G, Java, VRML, and many others. As an international standard, SGML allows cooperation among different technologies that corporate competition often would otherwise preclude.

For more information, refer to the following:

•  Chapter 31, “Oject-Oriented Development of SGML Applications,” tells you about how to build an object-oriented database of SGML documents. It takes you deeper into the cooperation between object-oriented systems and SGML documents.

•  Appendix A, “The SGML CD-ROM,” introduces you to SGML software that’s freely available in the public domain, as well as shareware demonstration versions of commercial software.

•  Appendix B, “Finding Sources for SGML Know-How,” suggests places from which to get answers to your questions. There are so many sources for SGML know-how; one of them is bound to have the answer.