Re: Can XML really replace HTML?

On Fri, 30 Apr 1999, Christian Ottosson wrote:
>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/

XML replaces SGML but not HTML. SGML and XML are a kind of sub layers for HTML.
Look at the specs for more informations.

Martin Kiehn <mkiehn@jcsbs.lanobis.de>

Received on Wednesday, 5 May 1999 10:40:52 UTC