BearState - 2013-12-11

For web programmers, separation of presentation from content is vital to the creation of web projects. This includes the simplest static web sites and upward to the most interactive web application sites. Content is achieved through markup and presentation, through cascading style sheets.

For Wixel-SMEN, those who ardently adhere to the objectives of this separation, ought to readily recognize that this separation appears to be violated. Wixel-SMEN uses markup for presentation.
In one sense, the ardent and dogmatic insistence upon separation of presentation and content via markup and CSS benefits Wixel-SMEN and AA-SWAB objectives, in that it has largely precluded others from considering those objectives. Few are willing to violate dogma to achieve progress.

On the other hand, it makes it difficult to build a development team for the project, for the same reason. Few are willing to violate dogma.

So, there is a need to expose a little more about AA-SWAB (Adaptive Application – Semantic Web Aware Browsing) at this time. AA-SWAB, the follow-on project to Wixel-SMEN, must achieve full cross-platform interoperability, right from the start. As a Next Generation Web (NGW) implementation, it approaches browsing, both from the traditional methodology of search and URI/URL access to web pages, but also simultaneously, to something somewhat new, exploration for content. Presentation is a key factor in NGW and it must not only achieve near perfect cross-platform interoperability, but it must also be simple enough and intuitive enough to support End User Development (EUD) of content presentation. One only need try to find and hire a web developer that understands and can aptly use responsive web, unobtrusive Javascript and markup to conclude, many end users will not be able to intuitively and intellectually cope with the specialization required. And this consideration does not even touch on the specialization required for faceted browsing for networked knowledge associations, a big part of NGW.

Wixel-SMEN is a lead-in project for AA-SWAB for these reasons. It is meant to hurdle the cross-platform interoperability hurdle and the separation of presentation and content hurdles early on. It is also meant to build and begin screening a team of developers and supporters for what will be a very comprehensive project.

Regarding content, content is in a sense, a mathematical entity in terms of exploration. Semantic Network Models (SNM) approach content associatively and additively. But AA-SWAB proposes to allow much more flexibility in content exploration. This moves the NGW well beyond the currently exercised semantic web application domains which depend upon faceted browsing to filter for associated knowledge content. It gives non-technical users, academics, engineers, and others the power to gather content related to their specifics, including contradictory content.

Enough said for now.