- Why markup languages are so popular
- What SGML has to do with ISO and CALS
- How SGML makes information transportable
- How SGML protects your formatting and structure
- How SGML is already gaining popularity on the Internet
- What the future holds for SGML
Markup languages, such as SGML and HTML, have changed the nature of information. Thanks to them, you can transport information across the planet and through all kinds of computer platforms and hosts. Your documents always retain their original structure and format.
Presenting information no longer requires a specific machine. It does not matter whether you are writing on a UNIX box, a Macintosh, an IBM mainframe, or a PC. Markup languages_SGML in particular_make your treatise infinitely transportable without changing its original appearance. You can write a zoological treatise, a movie review complete with video and sound clips, or a multimedia presentation, and transport it without losing its structure, content, or format.
SGML also makes your documents modular, interchangeable, and flexible. Hypertext takes advantage of this sort of flexible presentation of information. For example, if you click highlighted text in a help file on your PC, your computer display automatically jumps to information related to that text. For that event to happen, someone had to mark up or encode the related information. SGML provides the greatest flexibility possible for this sort of information interchangeability.