What are the problems with IDML? (fwd)

Once upon a time Mary Morris shaped the electrons to say...
>I've heard one other person say that they aren't SGML enough, now
>I hear this. Can someone please be specific about the problems.

First of all, I don't see the advantage.  What they have there can be done
just as easily with META - and that is what it is for after all.  Some of
their info is stuff that is properly handled already by existing tags and
styles - LINK REL=MADE for example is used by several browsers to link to
the author's email - why have another way to define email address that is
less useful?

They could have done ALL of it in META.

>that do bypass the biggest reason that they went around META
>tags to begin with - namely the cumbersomeness of such long
>round about definitions.

cumbersomness?  What did they save?  Nothing.  Look at:

DESCRIPTION="The Fastest, Easiest and Most Enjoyable
                 way to Browse the World of Music Today!"

You can do that in META.

KEYWORDS="information, individual, faq, fantasy,
                 psychology, television, film, show, rights, society,
                 entertainment, government, political, united, kingdom,
                 Prisoner, KAR120C, McGoohan, Portmerion, surrealism"

Same thing.

The ONLY thing they gave up was they put length limits on tags - which meta
doesn't have.

>I'd really like to understand the details of why they aren't 
>appropriate. 

They aren't SGML, they are redundant to existing tags, and they are
proprietary solutions when there is a non-proprietary solution available.

I'm happy that the force of the market is NOT IDML - but all of the major
sites use META tags.  So users have no real advantage or reason for IDML and
it will probably die quietly.

-MZ
--
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Received on Thursday, 15 August 1996 22:50:44 UTC