Re: [whatwg] Section 1.7 abstract language
On Thu, 13 Aug 2009, Kevin Benson wrote: On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 10:10 PM, Ian Hicksoni...@hixie.ch wrote: On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: This specification defines an abstract language for describing documents and applications, and some APIs for interacting with in-memory representations of resources that use this language. The phrase abstract language concerns me. It's not clear to me that a language can be abstract, nor is it clear to me what this phrase refers to, especially since it seems to be distinguished from the concrete syntaxes that can be used to transmit resources that use this abstract language, two of which are defined in this specification. Perhaps there's some sort of abstract data model or information model here; but I don't believe that the word language is appropriate to describe this. Language as normally understood is a collection of actual words or symbols, written or spoken. It is not a collection of abstract concepts, at least not in any definition of the term I was able to find. http://www.google.com/search?hl=ensafe=offq=define%3Alanguageaq=foq=aqi=g10 What term would you recommend rather than language that is more understandable than data model or information model? Would vocabulary be ok? Rather than changing the word language, how about changing the the word abstract instead... ...to an adjective such as prescriptive or normative... in order to describe the usage of the word language more purposefully ? On Sat, 15 Aug 2009, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: Vocabulary may be an an improvement over abstract language--I'd need to think further about that--but I think Kevin's suggestion is likely better. The spec defines a language (not abstract) with two syntaxes (or dialects, or variants). The word abstract is there to lead people away from thinking of HTML as being a concrete language in the sense that, e.g., C++ is a language or BibTex is a language. I agree that abstract isn't really the right word, but omitting it I think would cause more confusion here. Vocabulary is wrong too, since it implies just a lexicon of words, rather than a grammar, content models, etc. If anyone has any ideas for a better term than abstract language that conveys all the richness that language does but without implying a syntax exists, please let me know. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E)\._.,--,'``.fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A/, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Re: [whatwg] Section 1.7 abstract language
On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 2:51 AM, Ian Hickson i...@hixie.ch wrote: On Thu, 13 Aug 2009, Kevin Benson wrote: On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 10:10 PM, Ian Hicksoni...@hixie.ch wrote: On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: This specification defines an abstract language for describing documents and applications, and some APIs for interacting with in-memory representations of resources that use this language. The phrase abstract language concerns me. It's not clear to me that a language can be abstract, nor is it clear to me what this phrase refers to, especially since it seems to be distinguished from the concrete syntaxes that can be used to transmit resources that use this abstract language, two of which are defined in this specification. Perhaps there's some sort of abstract data model or information model here; but I don't believe that the word language is appropriate to describe this. Language as normally understood is a collection of actual words or symbols, written or spoken. It is not a collection of abstract concepts, at least not in any definition of the term I was able to find. http://www.google.com/search?hl=ensafe=offq=define%3Alanguageaq=foq=aqi=g10 What term would you recommend rather than language that is more understandable than data model or information model? Would vocabulary be ok? Rather than changing the word language, how about changing the the word abstract instead... ...to an adjective such as prescriptive or normative... in order to describe the usage of the word language more purposefully ? On Sat, 15 Aug 2009, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: Vocabulary may be an an improvement over abstract language--I'd need to think further about that--but I think Kevin's suggestion is likely better. The spec defines a language (not abstract) with two syntaxes (or dialects, or variants). The word abstract is there to lead people away from thinking of HTML as being a concrete language in the sense that, e.g., C++ is a language or BibTex is a language. I agree that abstract isn't really the right word, but omitting it I think would cause more confusion here. Vocabulary is wrong too, since it implies just a lexicon of words, rather than a grammar, content models, etc. If anyone has any ideas for a better term than abstract language that conveys all the richness that language does but without implying a syntax exists, please let me know. From reading your latest response, the applicable term that _first_ popped into my mind was: corpus (plural corpora or corpuses) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_corpus but I'll certainly think about alternatives in the context you/ve conveyed -- -- -- -- ô¿ô¬ K e V i N /¯\
Re: [whatwg] Section 1.7 abstract language
What term would you recommend rather than language that is more understandable than data model or information model? Would vocabulary be ok? Vocabulary may be an an improvement over abstract language--I'd need to think further about that--but I think Kevin's suggestion is likely better. The spec defines a language (not abstract) with two syntaxes (or dialects, or variants). E.g. This specification defines a language for describing documents and applications, and some APIs for interacting with in-memory representations of resources that use this language. The in-memory representation is known as DOM5 HTML, or the DOM for short. Various syntaxes can be used to transmit documents written in this language, two of which are defined in this specification. The first such syntax is HTML5. This is the format recommended for most authors. It is compatible with all legacy Web browsers. If a document is transmitted with the MIME type text/html, then it will be processed as an HTML5 document by Web browsers. The second syntax defined here uses XML, and is known as XHTML5 -- Elliotte Rusty Harold elh...@ibiblio.org
Re: [whatwg] Section 1.7 abstract language
On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: This specification defines an abstract language for describing documents and applications, and some APIs for interacting with in-memory representations of resources that use this language. The phrase abstract language concerns me. It's not clear to me that a language can be abstract, nor is it clear to me what this phrase refers to, especially since it seems to be distinguished from the concrete syntaxes that can be used to transmit resources that use this abstract language, two of which are defined in this specification. Perhaps there's some sort of abstract data model or information model here; but I don't believe that the word language is appropriate to describe this. Language as normally understood is a collection of actual words or symbols, written or spoken. It is not a collection of abstract concepts, at least not in any definition of the term I was able to find. http://www.google.com/search?hl=ensafe=offq=define%3Alanguageaq=foq=aqi=g10 What term would you recommend rather than language that is more understandable than data model or information model? Would vocabulary be ok? -- Ian Hickson U+1047E)\._.,--,'``.fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A/, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Re: [whatwg] Section 1.7 abstract language
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 10:10 PM, Ian Hicksoni...@hixie.ch wrote: On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: This specification defines an abstract language for describing documents and applications, and some APIs for interacting with in-memory representations of resources that use this language. The phrase abstract language concerns me. It's not clear to me that a language can be abstract, nor is it clear to me what this phrase refers to, especially since it seems to be distinguished from the concrete syntaxes that can be used to transmit resources that use this abstract language, two of which are defined in this specification. Perhaps there's some sort of abstract data model or information model here; but I don't believe that the word language is appropriate to describe this. Language as normally understood is a collection of actual words or symbols, written or spoken. It is not a collection of abstract concepts, at least not in any definition of the term I was able to find. http://www.google.com/search?hl=ensafe=offq=define%3Alanguageaq=foq=aqi=g10 What term would you recommend rather than language that is more understandable than data model or information model? Would vocabulary be ok? -- Ian Hickson Pardon me for interjecting myself into your exchange. Rather than changing the word language, how about changing the the word abstract instead... ...to an adjective such as prescriptive or normative... in order to describe the usage of the word language more purposefully ? Just a thought. -- -- -- -- ô¿ô¬ K e V i N /¯\
[whatwg] Section 1.7 abstract language
This specification defines an abstract language for describing documents and applications, and some APIs for interacting with in-memory representations of resources that use this language. The phrase abstract language concerns me. It's not clear to me that a language can be abstract, nor is it clear to me what this phrase refers to, especially since it seems to be distinguished from the concrete syntaxes that can be used to transmit resources that use this abstract language, two of which are defined in this specification. Perhaps there's some sort of abstract data model or information model here; but I don't believe that the word language is appropriate to describe this. Language as normally understood is a collection of actual words or symbols, written or spoken. It is not a collection of abstract concepts, at least not in any definition of the term I was able to find. http://www.google.com/search?hl=ensafe=offq=define%3Alanguageaq=foq=aqi=g10 -- Elliotte Rusty Harold elh...@ibiblio.org
