Can XML really replace HTML?

Good morning!

Sometimes when people talk about XML, it sounds like they want HTML to be
replace by it. For instance there should be no reason to develop HTML
further. I can't see how it can be replaced. So can someone please tell me?
Maybe they just distinguish XHTML from HTML.

Let me explain my point of view. If you serve my browser an XML file with
non HTML (or XHTML) elements and give reasonable names to them, like
"warning", "marginalia" or "biggestheader",  I can understand what your
intention is, when and if I read the source. But I can't expect my browser
to have a clue what the logical meaning of you own element is and it can
just blindly follow your style sheet. And I can't write a user style sheet
for all of them. The result would be a pure layout file without the
struktural meanings of a HTML file.

For me XML is a great language for the database which are transformed
(Probably with XSL) into the proper version of HTML, TeX etc before it is
served to the end user.

Can someone please put me on the right track if I've got something
completely wrong here. Or else, stay by HTML/XHTML on the WWW.

--
Christian Ottosson
http://www.f.kth.se/~f95-cot/

Received on Friday, 30 April 1999 04:21:00 UTC