I 
always thought so, but I'm not so sure.  It is pretty easy to take an LSA 
record 
and 
create an Illustrated Parts Breakdown.   It is hard to go in the other 
direction. 
It is 
somewhat like treating time as a fourth dimension; it really isn't because it 

isn't 
reversible except in simulation.   I can generate multiple 
representations 
out of 
my schema database including ERDs and HTML tables.   It is fairly 

straightforward to go from HTML tables back to relational tables, but not 

so 
easy to go from the ERDs in VML back to relational tables.   

 
From 
<p> to <partno>, information is gained.  In the other 
direction, it is 
lost.   How does your continuum hypothesis work with 
that?
 
As 
data is assembled into documents, it gains semantics.  So is the 

DocTypeSpectrum a semantic continuum?
 
len

  
From: Bob Glushko 
  [mailto:glushko@S...]

But I don't buy into this 
  data-centric vs doc-centric view of the world. It is obviously a 
  continuum   (called the "Document Type Spectrum" in the Document 
  Engineering book  I'm writing with Tim McGrath [just about done, MIT 
  Press early 2005]).   On one end are pure narrative things and on 
  the other end are purely transactional ones:   Moby Dick to 
  invoices.  IIn the middle are hybrid types like catalogs and reference 
  books that have lots of structured content mixed in with narrative 
  content.