- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:06:22 +0000 (UTC)
On Tue, 19 Aug 2008, Elliotte Harold wrote: > > > > In the case of non-Web content, the use of HTML is an academic point, > > since any format would work as well. > > Really? Why? and how? That's certainly not self-evident. When you control the software used to read the data, it doesn't matter what the data format is. > Aside from embedded links, which can point into the file system and are > usually relative anyway, there's very little web-specific about HTML. > It's just one format that can be served over HTTP or read from a disk, > just like PDF or text/plain or OpenDocument. Exactly. > HTML has some nice characteristics like resolution independence, direct > editability as text, and automatic reflow; but these are in no way > limited to network transfers. It has charactersitics that are independent of its use on the Web, yes. > For many use cases, especially cross-platform ones, HTML is the > formatted text format of choice. HTML isn't a formatted text format... > A properly designed HTML spec should not require, prohibit, or > preference a document being read from the network or from a local file > system or via any other protocol. HTML 1 through 4 and XHTML 1 and 2 had > this important characteristic. I hope HTML 5 does as well. I imagine it will. But it's not a requirement. If something comes up that would make HTML better for the Web and as a side-effect makes it not work for non-Web cases, then we should do it, not because of the side-effect, but because it makes HTML better for the Web. That HTML5 works for non-Web cases can be a happy accident, but it's not an intentional characteristic. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Tuesday, 19 August 2008 14:06:22 UTC