- From: Abigail <abigail@tungsten.gn.iaf.nl>
- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 02:03:12 +0100 (MET)
- To: www-html@w3.org
Murray Altheim wrote: ++ ++ This would really be the big change: not using HTML as the base language of ++ the Web. We'd use SGML (MIME type "text/sgml; level=1|2|3|4"), allowing the ++ DOCTYPE of the document to determine the DTD, just as in SGML. That DOCTYPE ++ could simply specify a dialect of HTML for the current majority of web ++ documents. I have heard this many times, yet I see problems noone has given me an answer to. HTML certainly is more than just a grammer. Search engines can index a document properly _because_ there is an implicit meaning to <TITLE>, that <H1> is more important than <H6>, that <STRONG> is used for something else than <B>, etc. But in the DTD, <H1> and <H6> have interchangeable roles; <STRONG> and <B> have the same context and the same content; <TITLE> is just something which appears in the <HEAD>. <A>, <IMG>, <INPUT> have side effects which aren't set in the DTD. If each document comes with its own DTD, then what? A user agent knows how to parse it, but how should it be displayed? Of course, authors could be required to deliver a style sheet as well, but they have to include everything, as there cannot be user agent defaults to fall back on. And what about user preferences? How is a user supposed to set preferences, if each document can have unknown elements? Abigail -- <URL: http://www.edbo.com/abigail/> (Changed)
Received on Tuesday, 19 March 1996 20:03:21 UTC