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+\iffalse
+Article for Baskerville. Jonathan Fine, 16 March 1994
+Revised, 18 March 1994
+\fi
+
+\title{\protect\TeX\ and SGML --- Friend or Foe?}
+\author[Jonathan Fine]{Jonathan Fine\\\texttt{J.Fine@uk.ac.cam.pmms}}
+\begin{Article}
+At the last \ukt\ committee meeting there was an interesting
+discussion about holding a meeting (London, November this year
+perhaps) on \TeX\ and SGML. It became clear that for such a meeting
+to be successful, particularly for developing and promoting \TeX\ as
+a typesetting system, that the purpose, focus, agenda, speakers and
+audience were matters that required careful thought and further
+discussion. What follows are some personal observations and opinions
+on the subject, with which the rest of the committee may or may not
+agree. It is my intention to open communication and begin a debate
+that will continue through to the proposed meeting this winter and
+beyond. My primary sources are {\em The \TeX book}, and {\em The
+SGML Handbook\/} (Charles Goldfarb, OUP~1990), which will be cited as
+[T] and [S] respectively.
+
+First, some words about standards. An old joke has someone saying
+\lq\lq{}Yes, we believe in standards. That\rq{}s why we have so many of
+them.\rq\rq{} The joke, of course, is that standards should create or
+make manifest uniformity amongst similar objects. Eli Phalet gave an
+early demonstration of the effectiveness of standards to President
+Lincoln, early in the US Civil War. He dismantled several rifles,
+mixed the parts up in a heap, and the reassembled the rifles, thereby
+demonstrating the interchangability of the parts. (This won him a
+large Union munitions contract.) Because the parts had been
+manufactured to carefully specified tolerances, this could be done.
+Then it was surprising. Now, it is perhaps surprising that it was
+once surprising. We take it for granted. Another meaning for
+\lq{}standard\rq{} is as a flag which leads an army into battle. Such
+standards are economic realities in the commercial world.
+
+The word \lq{}document\rq{} is overworked. Instead, I will use the word
+\lq{}compuscript\rq{} (or script for short), to refer to a structured file
+containing text and tags or processing commands. It is convenient to
+think of a script as being an ASCII file meeting (formal or informal)
+syntax conditions. Thus presented, many files are scripts. \TeX\
+and \LaTeX\ files satisfy an informal syntax. The same is true of
+macro files. Other examples are the content of a database,
+expressed in any one of a number of formats, program source files for
+any of the many programming languages, and document files for the
+various word processors and other typesetting systems. The ISO
+standard defines a document to be \lq\lq{}A collection of information that
+is processed as a unit. A document is classified as being of a
+particular document type.\rq\rq{}~[S,~p124,263]
+
+This may seem rather pedestrian and pedantic, but we are not yet able
+to repeat for scripts Remington\rq{}s rifle trick, which is of course
+based on boring and pedantic precise specifications for the parts.
+Incidentally, if you look up {\em Boring\/} in the Yellow Pages, it
+will say {\em See Civil Engineers}.
+
+The same compuscript may be processed in several ways. It may be
+edited, typeset, formatted for online display, compiled (if a program
+source file), or have its spelling and grammar checked. Portions may
+be extracted to form a secondary compuscript, such as an abstracts or
+citation journal. We can now see the complementary r\^oles of SGML
+and \TeX. The first is a standard for the specification of
+compuscripts. It is [S,~p7--8] \lq\lq{}based on two novel postulates
+\begin{itemize}
+\item[a)] Markup should describe a document\rq{}s structure and other
+attributes rather than specify processing to be performed~[\ldots]
+\item[b)] Markup should be rigorous so that the techniques available
+for processing rigorously-defined objects like programs and databases
+can be used for processing documents as well.\rq\rq{}
+\end{itemize}
+while \TeX\ is \lq\lq{}a new typesetting system intended for the creation
+of beautiful books---and especially for books that contain a lot of
+mathematics\rq\rq{}~[T,~page~v]. Thus, SGML is a specification language
+for compuscripts while \TeX\ is a typesetting system which will
+process suitable compuscripts.
+
+So far as I can tell, both \TeX\ and SGML are sound in their basic
+design. Given this---although some may disagree---one would expect
+them to work well together, like nuts and bolts. However, they do
+not, and it is worth understanding why and how. Here I must admit to
+having a trumpet to blow. It is my belief that a \TeX\ format can be
+written, that will parse and typeset suitable SGML compuscripts, and
+that such a format is the way to go. The following remarks are
+focussed on the existing \TeX\ and \LaTeX\ formats.
+
+\TeX\ has no inbuilt concept of markup or of parsing. This is
+probably as it should be, and I suggest that the reader reflect on
+why. My opinion is that such is---in terms of Knuth\rq{}s goal of
+creating beautiful books---a bell or whistle. A diversion. For
+similar reasons, I believe, Knuth saw no need to write a text file
+editor. He did however produce the WEB programming tools. He did
+supply \TeX\ and a couple of thousand lines of macros. Since then
+\TeX\ macro packages have mixed parsing in with processing in a
+manner which prohibits rigorous markup---a hallmark of SGML. One
+symptom of this is the recurrent problems of verbatim text within a
+macro argument, such as a section title.
+
+Because users can define new commands, the syntax of a \TeX\
+compuscript is always subject to change. It may be harmless to write
+\begin{verbatim}
+ \def\beq{\begin{equation}}
+ \def\eeq{\end{equation}}
+\end{verbatim}
+in the preamble to a \LaTeX\ compuscript, but
+\begin{verbatim}
+ \beq ax^2 + bxy + cy^2 \eeq
+\end{verbatim}
+will now cause a spell checker programmed to skip mathematics to trip
+up. Moreover, to set up such a checker to find the error in
+\begin{verbatim}
+ \begin{equation}
+ e = mc^2 \qquad\hbox{Eintsien}
+ \end{equation}
+\end{verbatim}
+will not be easy.
+
+A more substantial problem is the special and contingent typesetting
+instructions, that are required to achieve quality typesetting. The
+simplest examples are the space adjustments \verb"\>" and so forth
+used with mathematics. The breaking and spacing of long equations and
+formulae, when setting to a narrow measure, presents more
+difficulties, if one is to typeset from a compuscript satisfying a
+rigorous syntax. The same applies to tables. Typically, one might
+expect a skilled compositor (either human or robotic) to
+\lq{}annotate\rq{} the author\rq{}s compuscript for, say, a scholarly
+journal with commands to control or adjust page breaks, the size and
+placement of floating items---in a word, page make up. SGML
+recognizes [S,~p139,277] that one sometimes needs \lq\lq{}processing
+instructions,\rq\rq{} which are \lq\lq{}markup consisting of system
+specific data that controls how a document is to be processed.\rq\rq{}
+Here, the system might be \TeX-based typesetting, or typesetting to a
+particular design, or some other application. \lq\lq{}As war is to
+diplomacy,\rq\rq{} writes Goldfarb [S,~p139], so this is \lq\lq{}the
+last resort of descriptive markup.\rq\rq{}
+
+The key to success for SGML is that it provides standards for
+compuscripts, or more exactly provides tools for the expression of
+such standards. This allows diverse programs to process the same
+compuscript in various ways, for different purposes. Yuri Rubinsky,
+in his preface [S,~page~x] wrote
+\begin{quote}
+Over the next five years, computer users will be invited to anbandon
+their worst habits: They will no longer have to work at every
+computer task as if it had no need to share data with all their other
+computer tasks; they will not have to act as if the computer is
+simply a complicated, slightly-more-lively replacement for paper;
+[\ldots]; not have to appease software programs that seem to be at
+war with one another.
+\end{quote}
+but perhaps he is too optimistic---he was writing in October~1990.
+
+There appear to be two main situations where \TeX\ can contribute to
+SGML based document processing. The first is the high quality
+typesetting of SGML compuscripts, such as the content of a database.
+The second is more subtle. The tagging process adds information to
+the compuscript, and thereby makes it more valuable. For example, in
+this document the names of our two author, Knuth and Goldfarb, are
+set in the main body font, and so require no additional markup. But
+for a hypertext retrieval engine, we will want these names linked to
+an index of persons. Mechanical processes may help, but because many
+people share the same family name, a certain amount of author
+assistance is required, particularly for the more common names,
+family names that are also place names, and so forth.
+
+This is only one example of how the author is uniquely qualified to
+provide data tagging, as we may call it. Employees can be told to
+tag data, but this strategy is unlikely to work for the authors of
+scholarly publications. Instead they must be equipped with tools and
+incentives. In particular, a document processing system which
+returns benefits (such as copious indices and cross-references) to
+the author as a consequence of data tagging will provide an
+incentive perhaps stronger than coercion. \TeX\ is freely and widely
+available. It deserves to be part of such a system.
+
+\end{Article}
+\endinput