13.0216 nesting in SGML?

Humanist Discussion Group (humanist@kcl.ac.uk)
Tue, 28 Sep 1999 00:25:42 +0100 (BST)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 13, No. 216.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 22:44:59 +0100
From: Stephanie Browner <browner@berea.edu>
Subject: nesting boxes

Recently, I was explaining the nesting box problem in SGML to a friend. He
found it hard to believe that it really is impossible to tag both page breaks
and a stanza if a stanza starts on one page and continues on another.

What I understand about multiple, concurrent or overlapping hierarchies being
problematic in SGML I understand only from reading (and not from encoding). I
have read about these difficulties in such papers as Daniel Pitti's and John
Unsworth's 1998 "After the Fall."

But my friend's dismay that such a problem was insurmountable has shaken my
confidence. Is this really a problem? Is it insurmountable? Why? Is the
problem at the level of software? Have things changed recently?

thanks for any help,
Stephanie Browner
browner@berea.edu
Dept. of English
Berea College
Berea, KY 40404

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