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TASK 3: DSSSL Assessment
Final Document Style Semantics and Specifications Language (DSSSL) Survey and Assessment Report (March 1997)
The emergence of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard known as the DSSSL is expected by many to be the long awaited solution to providing an internationally standardized method for formatting style and applying transformations steps to Standardized General Mark-up Language (SGML) (ISO 8879). In the Continuous Acquisition and Life-cycle Support (CALS) domain with SGML defined by MIL-PRF-28001C, the Output Specification (OS) was created to provide users with the ability to format their SGML documents in a standardized and interchangeable manner, first for printed output and second for electronic presentation and delivery.
This report will discuss both of the specifications and will attempt to functionally correlate the features offered by them. This report will assess the capabilities, benefits, and limitations of the emerging DSSSL standard for the display of technical information in a platform independent manner and compare it to the capabilities, benefits, and limitations of the current OS in MIL-PRF-28001C. A key part of this report will be to identify the technical issues associated with the OS and the DSSSL Standard and then assess the gaps that exist in both of the standards with respect to the formatting of technical manual data. Functionality and characteristics matrices will be established for each of the standards. The matrices method opens the door for an objective and impartial analysis and will identify the overlapping and isolated features in the two specifications.
Microsoft Word 6.0 for Windows (3,076 KB)
DSSSL Assessment and Impact Report (January 1997)
This report serves as a general assessment of the DSSSL specification and will address key issues pertaining to the recent release of the specification and the impact envisioned for the United States (U.S.) Department of Defense (DoD) and the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) publishing industry. The “Preliminary Survey and Assessment Report” of the DoD CALS Integrated Data Environment (IDE) Project focused on the style language component of the DSSSL Specification and its comparison with the features and characteristics of the OS given in MIL-PRF-28001C. This report will attempt to bring out the importance and impact of the other components of the DSSSL Specification, namely the Transformation, Query and Expression Languages.
The report will outline the context and history of the development of both the DSSSL and OS so that the target user communities they address can be established. The Electronic Publishing Committee of the CALS Industry Standards Working Group (ISG) formed a "MIL-M-28001 Output Specification Ad Hoc Group" to develop the associated formatting information in the form of an "Output Specification" (OS) Document Type Definition (DTD). The design and development of both specifications have been nearly concurrent, and both have evolved substantially since their inception. The OS was designed to address the publishing problems being faced by the DoD and was meant to serve a specific purpose while the rest of the community waited for DSSSL. The stages of development of both the specifications are well defined and will be addressed in this report.