XML

Maybe a solution to SEP's reproducible document project on the web. How do we implement buttons that issue Java and/or System commands?

XML is an approved standard by the world wide web consortium. It's a subset of SGML designed to be uncomplicated and for the use on the web. HTML is a specific application of SGML. The important difference between HTML and XML is that HTML specifies all the tags, whereas XML lets a user create his own tags. Both Microsoft and Netscape will be backing XML, and there already exist XML parsers (in Java) and browsers.

Here are some references:

IBM's XML2TeX suggests to write XML docs and then to convert them to TEX for printing.
Jumbo a first XML browser.
XML is the way of the near future says Sun.
XML appetizer is short paper.
XML classic albeit only a year old *smiles*
Another good article by Caltech.
XML and applications but I scanned it only.
The FAQ is about 20 printed pages.
Specifications are very dry.
There are also a couple of books: Joel says this on is decent, although it was the first book (published in the summer of this year), so it may be out of date: Presenting XML by Richard Light.
This one looks promising: XML: Principles, Tools, and Techniques (Volume II, Issue 4 of the World Wide Web Journal, World Wide Web Journal)