Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language (HyTime) - 2d Edition, from the WG8 web server (http://www.ornl.gov/sgml/wg8/document/1920.htm). The index of materials and the table of contents provide convenient entry points for the online ISO standard. This electronic 'review' version of the new ISO/IEC 10744:1997 is available online in HTML, PDF, and SGML format - complete with SoftQuad Panorama stylesheet.
Of special importance is the standard's Annex A, SGML Extended Facilities, a normative annex which defines the SGML Extended Facilities, many of which are prerequisites for the other clauses. Annex A includes a specification for the Architectural Form Definition Requirements (AFDR) which provide a 'general mechanism for declaring and using SGML architectures', already implemented in part by James Clark in the sp parser. The updated SGML property set defined in Annex A is of broad relevance to SGML implementors, since "HyTime shares with the DSSSL standard (ISO/IEC 10179:1996, Document Style Semantics and Specification Language) the fundamental SGML property set and grove abstraction for representing and operating on parsed SGML documents (and other data objects for which groves can be constructed)."
Access to the new HyTime standard is facilitated by a collection of tutorial materials on the HyTime User's Group home page (http://www.hytime.org/). The two documents 'A Reader's Guide to the HyTime Standard' and 'What's New and Cool in HyTime Second Edition' are particularly useful.
Contact Robin Cover with corrections and updates, or to submit contributions to the ISUG online document database.
