Re: HTML 3.2

Once upon a time Gregory J. Woodhouse shaped the electrons to say...
>I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not the only person that thinks HTML 3.2 is
>a good thing. True, it codifies a large subset of existing practice, and I

No.  I've been following HTML since a FOAF worked at CERN while it was
developed - before Netscape, even before Mosaic.

This doesn't appear to me to be the evil thing a couple (note it is just
a couple of people yelling) of people are trying to make it out to be.

The W3C had lost leadership, if they even attempted to create a new spec
without first acknowledging the de facto standard first they'd be ignored.

The idealists need to wake up a bit and realize *business* is involved here.
The W3C needed to get their cooperation and interest, and participation, 
in order to do anything but mental masturbation in developing a new spec.
If you read what is available, HTML 3.2 provides a new base to work from.
It recognizes the things most authors are doing anyway, gives then an official
DTD to allow all browsers easy implimentation without reverse engineering,
and gives a jumping off point for other things.

Another thing to note - I've been in the HTML Writers Guild for a bit now
and on all of their mailing lists.  That is a lot of writers.  Off the top
of my head I don't recall a single question on <MATH> - but many questions
on inserting things (<OBJECT>) and on Style Sheets.  <MATH> is not 
important to the majority of the people writing HTML - comercial businesses
and personal homepages.  So if some people really want it, maybe they should
help write the spec instead of whining that other people aren't doing it.


And using '3.2' helps put the nail in the coffin of the long defunct 3.0
proposal.  3.0 had some good stuff - it also had some poorly thought out
schemes, and it was unweildy.  3.2 covers bits of 3.0 that are in use,
and provides an easy point to work from in introducing more.

Personally the two things I want to see most now are <OBJECT> and 
Style Sheets.  When those are available I can do most everything I want.
I might use <MATH> just for cute stuff, but I really don't have a need for
it on Livingston's pages or mine.

HTML 3.0 has been a farce for months, stop clinging to it, join reality,
stop griping, and work on the future.  It is over and done - the public
is going to follow 3.2, all but maybe complete fringe browsers are going
to follow 3.2 - and if AT&T and M$ had to drop proprietary schemes and
embrace HTML because the market was so forceful as to reject their solutions,
do you think you have a serious chance to make anything that is going to
replace it?

-MZ
--
Although I work for Livingston Enterprises Technical Support, I alone am
responsible for everything contained herein.  So don't waste my managers'
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Phone: 800-458-9966  support@livingston.com  <http://www.livingston.com/> 
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Received on Thursday, 9 May 1996 03:12:22 UTC