Re: HTML 3.2 [was: Unique Names & content scope -Reply ]

In message <199605071958.PAA05409@portia.portia.com>, Matthew James Marnell wri
tes:
>:>
>:>So the folks looking for long-lasting structured markup are dominated
>:>9x by the folks who want glitzy throw-away stuff.
>
>Because DS says so?  It's funny how so many conclusions are made
>about such an immature technology, so quickly, by so few, that
>affect so many.  So, now, on Dave's say so we are beholden to
>believe that the entertainment industry is the be all and end
>all of the WWW and HTML.  The brass ring.  The goal.  The end
>that justifies the means.

Fine: blow up my words. Overgeneralize. Create more fear, uncertainty,
and doubt.

Dave's presentation wasn't the only evidence I've seen in
this direction; it was just the clearest presentation of it.
And nobody is beholden to anybody just on Dave's word.

>And so, we should give up on things like math, and anything that
>directly benefits the academic community, only gloss over commercial
>desires and have nice presentation stuff for the entertainers such
>as font faces, etc.

NO! I'm not giving up, and neither should you. YOU SHOULD CONTRIBUTE!
You should help make up for the fact that we get about 100000000 calls
about 3D animation and font/color fidelity for every 1 call we get
about math.


>Please, I'd be very interested in seeing some kind of evidence for
>this.

Guilty. All I have is anecdotal evidence.

But you're making it much worse.


>  Even in the commercial intranet sites I've worked on, math
>is far more important than font faces, image justification, etc.

Please write up your experience and submit it as a W3C technical
report. See: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/


>3.2 is a throwback.  If this is really what we can expect from
>W3C as far as the future of HTML goes, then we might as well just
>ignore standardizing HTML and trying to make it useful and just let
>the browser manufacturers define it as they go.


I'm sorry you feel this way. HTML 3.2 is something of a thowback.
It's descriptive of current practice. It's a way to get as much
resource as possible coordinated around the same effort.

If you want to see our vision of the future (which certainly includes
math, stylesheets, ...)  please see:

	http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Activity

Dan

Received on Tuesday, 7 May 1996 16:34:02 UTC