Re: Structure v. pages (was Re: HTML+)

> From: rkoman@ora.com (Richard Koman)
> 
> It's not just commercial concerns. Designers, for instance, are frustrated
> by the idea that they can't present information and have it people see it
> the way they meant it to be seen. They can't spec a typeface, can't knock
> type out of an image, can't spec a color, can't set type on an angle, can't
> run type around an image, can't put images underneath type, etc. You can do
> all these things on a computer, so why shouldn't you be able to let people
> see the structured (designed) document on the Net? Not being able to do so
> leads people to printing documents and mailing them to people (the ultimate
> push).
> 


Don`t you think a lot of the concern about typsetting control is ignoring the 
fact that in a few years, we will (should?) have enough bandwidth and 
communication speed (via fiber optics and digital communication) for people to 
take a full-color 20 page brochure, scan it, and put it up on the Net as 
a viewable jpeg, gif, or whatever with no one complaining about download time?

Furthermore, don't you think that soon after that (i.e. 5-10 years) we will
have live action video-at-a-click for people who really want to make an 
impact, and that for most marketing applications that full-color typeset 
brochures (along with Adobe Acrobat, et. al.) will become a quaint relic of 
the past?

If these assumptions are true, why are we wasting our time downgrading the 
small simple contributions that HTML is making to the ability to deliver 
on-line text and graphics?  One of the beauties of HTML currently is the fact
that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to use it (no offense to all
you rocket scientists out there).  I think we are asking too much and failing 
to appreciate the sea changes taking place in communications if we try to
make HTML into something like LaTex.  Instead, we should just concentrate on
making browsers that read LaTex and let the people who want to use that
standard use it instead of HTML.

Ryan






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Received on Thursday, 15 September 1994 18:27:18 UTC