Re: Capitalizing on HTML

> At 10:26 AM 09/19/96 -0400, Paul Prescod wrote:
> 
> >I think we should expect XML browsers quickly, but should not depend on XML
> >editors....
> 
> We might, however, get SGML editor vendors (most of whom are represented
> here, so correct me if I'm wrong) to add a "Save as XML" feature -- most of
> them are doing something close to that already, since they don't generally
> minimize on output (if you're writing out SGML from a grove-like internal
> representation, it's easier and maybe faster to write out all the tags than
> to calculate whether any particular one is omissable).

I certainly expect XML editors to come about. I just don't think that we 
should design something that depends on them, because

a) SGML editors are expensive (will XML editors be cheaper?)
b) SGML editors are not nearly as widely deployed as text editors
c) After two years (or so) of marketing HTML editors are probably still used
   by a minority of authors.
d) Some people don't like SGML editors.
e) SGML editors are not available for all languages.

Don't get me wrong. I use an SGML editor. I hardly ever edit SGML by hand.
But I think that expecting most webmasters to change their tools overnight
is overambitious. Once XML is popular as a hand-coded format, the hand-coders
will have opportunity to learn the benefits of dedicated tools.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Thursday, 19 September 1996 14:52:36 UTC