Re: <math>, <fig>, ... (fwd)

At 03:26 AM 5/10/96 -0700, MegaZone wrote:
>Once upon a time Paul Prescod shaped the electrons to say...
>>A new HTML 3.0 could be HTML 2.0 + W3C good stuff (math,style,object) + the
>>well designed features from the old HTML 3.0 spec.
>
>What was well designed in the old HTML 3.0 spec that is not in 3.2 nor is
>being worked on by the W3C?  Seriously, I'd lik to know what you are
>thinking of with this.

I'm talking about the Netscape crap and CLASS, primarily.

>>In other words, it would be HTML 3.2 + W3C good stuff - Netscape crap.
>
>I just don't see the point in this, the 'Netscape crap' is really minor.
>It seems like an idealist argument or a pathological hatred of anything to
>do with NS instead of a rational process.  

The problem is that the more formatting stuff gets into the language, the
more formatting stuff _will_ get into the language. "HTML isn't really
platform independant markup...it has _elements_ for _centering_ for gawd's
sake! And FONT face control elements! How can you call that platform
independent?"

Our apple is becoming an aporange before our eyes. It's not a firm ripe
apple, but it isn't a soft, sweet orange either. It's a confusing mix.

One of the major points of DTDs is to reduce the number of available tags
until the choice of which tag to use should be either obvious, or at least
fairly straight forward. The less training the user base is going to have,
the more strictly you should follow that rule.

In order for organizations (where organization is taken in the "big sense",
small groups up to consortia of governments) to standardize on HTML, they
are going to have to make a "sane" subset without all of the formatting
tags. That message from Lee pointed out how HTML is moving away from
usefulness within his organization for exactly that reason.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Friday, 10 May 1996 07:09:43 UTC