[tdf-discuss] The fast evolving shape of documents

Hi,

Just thought I'd pass along a reference to this article:

http://drdobbs.com/tools/229400040

As is often the case some of the comments to the article are quite
interesting also: (for those that don't subscribe the mag)

"The key item is that the historical use of static monochromatic text
is no longer necessary. It is technically possible for documents to in-
clude animation, multiple colors, and even three dimensions.
Since software applications are dynamic and fast moving, I should
think that animated software design methods would improve software
quality and reliability.
Ordinary news documents and journals could also expand by includ-
ing some animated segments. This already occurs with some of the
ads that pop up when you access journals, but I'm speaking of editorial
content and not extraneous marketing material."
—Capers Jones

"To make electronic forms of documents an adequate, perhaps superior
replacement for printed documents, we need three levels of independ-
ent abstractions for documents: the document itself, how the docu-
ment is rendered on a particular media or device, and the markup for
that document. A document should be able to be rendered through a
transformation that is a function of a device and display parameters.

This leads to the notion that page numbers simply are not ideal for
electronic documents. Also, I’d like the markup to reference, but be
separate from, the book. I want my markup to be durable, but one
thing that this could also give us is multiple markups for the same doc-
ument. Of course, this markup needs to be rendered also. So, the
pipeline is Document->Document+Markup->Display Device. Markup
also needs to go back from Display-Control to portable markup."
—Geoffrey Pascoe


"As a Content
Manager and Knowledge Management system consultant for the
same software company, I’m still amazed at how we hold on to the
“book” paradigm when it comes to documentation. This includes our
product documentation group."
—Michael Boor

A little something to chew over perhaps.

Best wishes,

Drew



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