Re: Possible use of <INSERT> - serious inquiry (fwd)

MegaZone <megazone@livingston.com> typed:
>I'm basically in the "I don't really care" section on the "Is HTML to be
>SGML compiant or its own language" war.  If a feature is useful and in
>demand, but it happens to break SGML - so be it.

There is no war. HTML is specified as an SGML application. I don't know of
anyone contesting this, so if there is a fight going on, it certainly is
below the level of my radar.

>If my pages are valid HTML but not valid SGML - frankly I don't care.

Then why are you bothering to communicate with people designing standards
or applications based on standards? If your pages are valid HTML, then they
MUST be valid SGML. If they aren't valid HTML, they aren't valid SGML.

I understand what you're saying: you don't care. If you live and work in an
environment that doesn't care about document validity, I'm certainly not
going to come down to your office and shove it down your throat. But there
are technical and professional communities that do care about document
validity (finance, accounting, medical, security, military, communications,
transportation, etc.), where errors/omissions matter. You apparently aren't
working in one of those communities.

The success of the Web is due to wide-scale interoperability. This
interoperability is based on standards, which includes the formal
definition of the core language and the application conventions of that
standard. This won't change; in fact, it is getting better. Aside from the
competition over new features (which is really overblown -- there are only
a few variant features between the big-time browsers), error handling
behavior, comment handling, etc. are all improving with each product
release.

Murray

```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
     Murray Altheim, Program Manager
     Spyglass, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts
     email: <mailto:murray@spyglass.com>
     http:  <http://www.stonehand.com/murray/murray.htm>

Received on Wednesday, 20 March 1996 01:26:51 UTC