Papers in PDF format

Mockapetris 1987b].
DNS-style type definition service might seem like overkill initially and would result in delays for pioneer users of
document types. Without a substantial local cache, document type queries would have to be sent across the Internet for
practically every Web document viewed. An alternative would be to have documents include their type definition code
at the top or reference a URL where such a definition might be found. This is how it is done with style sheets.
Regardless of how the hierarchy is maintained, developing the initial core taxonomy is a daunting task. The taxonomies
developed by librarians are only a partial solution because they do not generally concern themselves with the sorts of
ephemera that constitute the bulk of Internet traffic. If we don't get the core taxonomy right, we won't reap the benefits
of useful standard software.
Conclusions
Measured against the yardstick of "how well does this Internet thing work?", HTML is an underachiever. It lacks
sufficient structural and formatting tags to render many documents comprehensible much less aesthetic, even with the
addition of style sheets. The META tag can be exploited to implement a document typing system. We need to develop a
hierarchy of document types to facilitate implementation of programs that automatically process Web documents. This
type system must support multiple inheritance. If we fail to develop some kind of semantic tagging system, computers
will be unable to render us any useful assistance with Web documents until the dawn of Artifical Intelligence, i.e.,
natural language understanding and common sense reasoning.
References
Martin Gilbert 1991. Churchill A Life Henry Holt & Company, New York, page 595
Lie, H.W., Bos, B. 1996. "Cascading Style Sheets, W3C Working Draft"
(http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/WD-css1.html)
Malone, Thomas W., Grant, Kenneth R., Lai, Jum-Yew, Rao, Ramana, and Rosenblitt, David 1987. "Semistructured
Messages are Surprisingly Useful for Computer-Supported Coordination." ACM Transactions on Office Information
Systems, 5, 2, pp. 115-131.
Malone, Thomas W., Yu, Keh-Chaing, Lee, Jintae 1989. What Good are Semistructured Objects? Adding Semiformal
Structure to Hypertext. Center for Coordination Science Technical Report #102. M.I.T. Sloan School of Management,
Cambridge, MA
Mockapetris, P.V. 1987a. "Domain Names: Concepts and Facilities," RFC 1034
Mockapetris, P.V. 1987b. "Domain Names: Concepts and Facilities," RFC 1035
Ondaatje, Michael 1992. The English Patient. Vintage International, New York
Stevens, W. Richard 1994. TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts