What is the idea of SGML?
The idea of SGML is to thematize the structure of text, by adding explicit structure descriptors — markup tags — to the text. For example, if we wish to communicate something about a product, instead of saying something like: “Netscape’s Navigator is not related to Portugal’s Henry the Navigator”, we can say: “Netscape’s Navigator© is not related to Portugal’s PRINCE Henry the Navigator.” Note that, in the preceding sentence, when the structure tags are reduced to simple HTML page formatting, the tagged up sentence looks pretty much the same as the untagged plain text version. Texts, like physical buildings, can either be products of habit and custom (“vernacular architecture”), or be products of conscious, self-accountable creativity and critique (The Bauhaus, structural engineering, etc.). I hypothesize SGML may portend a “change of phase” (–Henry Adams) in our relation to language, such as previously was effected by alphabetic writing and uniform printed editions. Among other thi
