Re: Link indirection

Eliot writes:

   Remember too that we're pretty much pre-supposing style sheets for
   documents (it's difficult to have default presentation behavior for
   arbitrary DTDs unless those DTDs are mapped to known architectures for
   which you do have default behaviors).  Thus, the style sheet can manage
   suppressing the presentation of resources (e.g., hiding index entries or
   indirect addressing elements).

I'm not so sure that the authors and editors are ready yet for
providing style sheets for every instance they generate. Which means
that no matter how good XML is, nor how good the browser is at
supporting it, someone somewhere is going to need some default
presentations, even if it takes the form of some heuristics (after
all, guessing that <P>, <PAR>, <PARA>, or <PARAGRAPH> are likely to
be paragraph elements in an unknown and unidentified (possibly
non-existent) DTD is, I believe, reasonable).

I think there will be an interim period between current HTML
and eventual XML, a transitional gap where 

   a. a mix of authors write in HTML or pseudo-HTML or BrandX (XML)
      DTD or make-it-up-as-you-go-along DTDless text, with or without
      a stylesheet; 

   b. browsers display HTML and pseudo-HTML but may or may not parse
      other stuff, and may or may not decide either to reject it, or
      to make the best fist of it they can, based on experience.

Is it any of our business here to address what needs doing in this
gap, or is this someone else's job?

   Cheers,

Cheers indeed (looking morosely at the now-empty bottle of 1977 port).

///Peter

Received on Saturday, 4 January 1997 19:38:44 UTC