Re: Multiple versions of a web page

> However, suppose that when the web page designer creates the web page,
> additional information is stored in the web page to direct the extractor
> on how to create a universal web page.  For example, the web page designer
> could include a special comment to the extractor like:

I believe the BBC does something like this, however the result is 
uncacheable pages.

More of concern is that one is simulating a structural markup language
in the comments of what *is* a structural markup language, and thus
perpetuating the abuse of structural features for presentation.
Unfortunately many designers won't realise that that is what you 
are doing, because they fail to understand that HTML is really
structural.

If a designer is capable of thinking clearly in terms of the 
"basic web page" structure, they will probably have little problem
with CSS approaches.  If they can't think clearly in those terms,
the additional markup-as-markup-comments is going to be a last 
minute bolt on.

I think any of these approaches will only work for organisations,
like news organisations, that mass produce pages in similar styles,
not the business creating a promotional web site.

Finally, even if you don't use main stream markup, there are, I believe,
constructs in SGML that can indicate additional structure without
having to hide things in comments.

Received on Thursday, 20 December 2001 02:37:53 UTC