- From: Len Bullard <cbullard@HiWAAY.net>
- Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 07:00:32 -0600
- To: Martin Bryan <mtbryan@sgml.u-net.com>
- CC: w3c-sgml-wg@www10.w3.org
Martin Bryan wrote: > > Web users stick to HTML - why should they change to XML if XML's linking > mechanism is no better than HTML's. Many of us web users are screaming at > W3C to improve linking so we can manage our links better, and so that we can > offer sensible hierarchies of possible information providers. If they don't > improve HTML soon some of us are going to have to find an alternative. It > would be nice if that alternative could be XML. Agreed. Unless we get a capability that is clearly superior to the current web situation, the alternative is to apply other current systems which are already superior and simply adopt protocols which can support them. SGML/XML should offer a set of hyperlinking and location models (yes, location models) which enable us to build up to a more capable system by implementing each part as needed. You won't oust HTML. Forget that. At the end of this, HTML must also be expressed as XML. It is already expressed as SGML so it is XML that must make a case for itself. A victory indicates someone wins and someone loses. If that is what you want, you are not designing a system; you are choosing victims. Subsetting HyTime (what it was designed for) is a better alternative than adopting it in non-conforming pieces then claiming to have solved the problem by superior means. So far, I have read no real objections to what Eliot is proposing. IMO, HyTime is baroque and has undergone many transformations that while making it stronger, have left many of us bewildered about what it is. A position paper that proposes how HyTime could be applied to XML hyperlinking is needed. Simply punting to the stylesheet revives the DSSSL vs The World wars carefully put to bed by wiser members of the SGML community a year ago. Len Bullard Lockheed Martin
Received on Saturday, 21 December 1996 08:00:33 UTC