Re: Exploring new vocabularies for HTML

Ian Hickson wrote:
>> There have been theoretical arguments that it allows data to be out of 
>> sync, but practice has shown that this is a minor concern at best.
>>     
>
> On the contrary, experience with the Web has shown that including 
> redundant data (e.g. accessibility metadata, page description metadata, 
> and so forth) is actively harmful, as it is almost always out of sync with 
> the data seen by most users. It is also the case that most people wouldn't 
> know it was available. I would imagine that a much better and more 
> productive way to provide Content MathML to users would be to include the 
> Presentational MathML inline, and then have links for users to download 
> separate MathML files containing the Content MathML.
>   
I am surprised that you can say something like this without doubting 
your judgement, or calling your experience into question. Don't you 
think there is a world where redundant data can be a problem in one 
corner of the universe (your corner) and there are other corners 
(including Math) where it is not? Neil Soiffer and the folks at Design 
Science have a lot of data that supports their claims, and it seems to 
me bad engineering (possibly leading to flawed designs) to just dismiss 
this at the stroke of the keyboard. What are you expecting the 
discussion to become here, a children's shouting match with "but I am 
right" ... "no I"...?

Michael

-- 
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 Prof. Dr. Michael Kohlhase,       Office: Research 1, Room 62 
 Professor of Computer Science     Campus Ring 12, 
 School of Engineering & Science   D-28759 Bremen, Germany
 Jacobs University Bremen*         tel/fax: +49 421 200-3140/-493140
 m.kohlhase@jacobs-university.de http://kwarc.info/kohlhase 
 skype: m.kohlhase   * International University Bremen until Feb. 2007
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Received on Tuesday, 1 April 2008 07:05:41 UTC