The Final Word On HTML

Jason O'Brien (jaobrien@fttnet.com)
Wed, 25 Sep 96 11:50:00 CDT 

From: "Jason O'Brien" <jaobrien@fttnet.com>
To: "'www'" <www-html-request@w3.org>, "'www'" <www-html@w3.org>
Subject: The Final Word On HTML
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 96 11:50:00 CDT
Message-ID: <324962BA@smtpgate.ftt.com>


Lately I have seen a lot of discussion from programmers in this group   
talking about what they think HTML is -- criticizing every new HTML   
development and every new item that Netscape or Microsoft might come up   
with.    I have been coding HTML for just over a year now and I'm tired   
of people saying HTML is only a rendering language.   HTML's solitary   
purpose is to exist as a standard programming language which allows for   
the same viewing of material no matter where you are or on what computer   
you access it.   As such, HTML should advance into other areas of   
multimedia, eventually eliminating a lot of the need for plug-ins -- HTML   
is a very powerful programming language -- the problems today exist with   
the standard idea -- Netscape and Microsoft keep developing tags which   
only work on their browsers, making programming for the web a nightmare   
in trying to determine exactly how your page is going to be viewed.   
  Part of the problems have been mentioned in the last couple of days,   
with users having the ability to override your colors and fonts, have   
their window size set any way they'd like -- the problem is there is no   
standard which seems to work.

I have also seen people criticize only programming for the Netscape and   
Microsoft environments -- Netscape controls about 80% of the browser   
market, Microsoft is second -- why not develop for these two?   The   
Internet's future will be decided by these two companies, like it or not   
(I don't necessarily like that fact) and as more and more people begin to   
access the Internet for the first time, these are the two browsers that   
people will be most likely to choose.   Anybody that is a forward thinker   
knows that the Internet is the most vastly changing aspect of computers   
nowadays and there is no future in the past, as far as computing and   
programming is concerned.   The future of the Internet is multimedia, is   
through presentation.   Yes, the textual aspects of the Internet will   
always be there -- but HTML as a language should advance along with all   
of the other elements which will make up the future of the Internet into   
a more robust language (yes, meaning more tags which can accomplish a lot   
of multimedia features as well as more text styles) -- HTML will continue   
to become a standard for publishing in more ways than just on the   
Internet --

You know that the majority of people with computers have to upgrade   
almost every year their equipment (there are reasons nobody runs on a 386   
anymore) so the same holds true for the browsers -- there is no possible   
way to make sure your web pages are valid with every single way that   
someone is going to view them (it's physically impossible) -- so the best   
solution is to design for the majority of the audience that's going to be   
viewing them -- through Netscape and Internet Explorer -- like it or not,   
that's where the future of the Internet lies.

Jason O'Brien
jaobrien@fttnet.com