RE: Beyond Tagged to "Spatial" Syntax

[Stephen Beller <sbeller@nhds.com>]

The method I'm describing has had an international patent for 10 years and
we have built it into a number of applications. Thank you for your time.
Be well,
Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: Len Bullard [mailto:len.bullard@uai.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 4:51 PM
To: Stephen Beller
Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: RE: Beyond Tagged to "Spatial" Syntax

You may want to talk to Newcomb about the TechnoTeacher products of the
early 90s before applying for patents.  It would be tough to figure out the
essential claims and I don't think that is a discussion you want to have on
a mail list.  Just my two cents.

Cheers,

len


From: Stephen Beller [mailto:sbeller@nhds.com] 
 
Thank you very much, Len! Your feedback is very helpful.

We agree that spatial addressing, per se, is not proprietary. What's
proprietary is a method for using spatial addressing in which a rendering
template, which contains formatting instructions, (a) consumes a data file
whose contents have been arranged in such a way that the template "knows"
the spatial positioning of each element in the data file, and then (b)
applies the associated formatting instructions based on the data locations.
I know of multiple ways to generate a data file that enables an associated
rendering template to use spatial addressing to apply formatting
instructions to the data elements. Thus, the method I'm describing goes
beyond the use of spatial addressing and on to establishing associations
between such a "report-ready" data file and its corresponding rendering
template(s). 

Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: Len Bullard [mailto:len.bullard@uai.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 3:07 PM
To: Stephen Beller
Cc: mike@saxonica.com; wperry@fiduciary.com; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: RE: Beyond Tagged to "Spatial" Syntax

Hi Stephen:

I don't know how to sell that, but the notion of spatial addressing of data
isn't proprietary.  ISO 10744:1992 HyTime has spatial addressing.  This
evolved from a music language where the problems of addressing into space
and time with the same locator types are reasonably clear.

The challenge at the time was to be able to reliably link into formats that
didn't have markup.  You might want to find a copy of DeRose/Durand's book.
Here is a quick overview from Robin Cover: 

http://xml.coverpages.org/hyQuick-tr1v1.html 

and from Steve Newcomb

http://www.infoloom.com/gcaconfs/WEB/barcelona97/angerst7.HTM

Unlike URIs, Hytime separates linking and locating.   A context link or
independent link is associated to a locator type.  This provides
indirection.  The locator type is chosen depending on the format or
addressing requirements of the target.  The most common are

Nameloc - name location.  Really this is ID based linking.
Treeloc - Path in a tree.  Think parents and siblings.  

Otherwise:

Dataloc - a counting scheme such as words.  A dimension location provided a
count to the data and its length.

Dynamic addressing is via queries.  HyTime had HyQ then adopted the DSSSL
query language.

What you describe sounds a lot like fcsloc:  a finite coordinate system
locator.

http://www.pms.ifi.lmu.de/mitarbeiter/ohlbach/multimedia/HYTIME/ISO/clause-6
.1.html

" a set of coordinate axes and a system for measuring along them.

Each axis is treated as an ordered set of "quanta". A coordinate address
consists of a position (the first quantum of interest) and a specific number
of subsequent contiguous quanta for each of the axes of the coordinate
space. This combination of position and size is called an extent.

When the scheduling module is supported, occurrences of objects ("events")
can be given extents in coordinate spaces. Events can be aligned with one
another by defining their extents with reference to the extents of other
events.

When the location address module is supported, "location address" elements
can be defined that associate an ID (directly or indirectly) with a
coordinate address. This type of location address allows references to be
made to objects that can be identified only by their position."

To get some information about this, currency and propriety, you would want
to talk to Dr. Steve Newcomb or Eliot Kimber.  I'm not saying you want to
use this, but it is prior art because it was successfully implemented.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/39732/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&;
SRETRY=0

Other readers:  please, no *web is holy everything else sucked* flame war on
this topic.  Spilt milk.  I'm just trying to provide history for Mr. Beller
so he can consider his proposal in terms of what was done before the web won
the link type wars or has to defend his patent proposals given prior art.

len


From: Stephen Beller [mailto:sbeller@nhds.com] 

Len,

I was intrigued by your response below about CSV. I've longed argued that
for data files, CSV (or other delimited text formats) is the most sensible
way to go. And I recently posted a reply about how CSV can be used to manage
hierarchies (including recursive hierarchies), as well as Unicode, and do it
with high speed, low cost, and little resource consumption.

What it takes is a shift from a paradigm based on tabular/tuple data
organization models and markup tag definitions--to thinking in terms of
rendering pre-defined data arrays stored in CSV files, which are rendered
using templates that apply formatting instructions based on the data
locations/positions (e.g., referencing the data by their cell locations in a
spreadsheet). This "spatially-based" paradigm is a proven disruptive
technology.

Any ideas about how to gain recognition for this proprietary technology is
welcomed!

Steve 

---------------------------
Stephen E. Beller, PhD
CEO/President
National Health Data Systems, Inc.
Web: http://cpsplit.typepad.com
Wiki: http://wellness.wikispaces.com 
Blog: http://curinghealthcare.blogspot.com 

======================

I think.... yes.  Otherwise we'd send CSV.

len


From: Michael Kay [mailto:mike@saxonica.com] 
 
> is a tag name content or markup; or, is that a meaningful question?

It's whatever you define it as, surely.

Clearly in terms of the information represented by a message, content and
markup are completely interchangeable. It's purely a tactical distinction to
assist the recipient with processing.<qed/>

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