Re: Doctypes, Declarations, and HTML Versions

On Mon, 4 Oct 1999 75819671@it.ibm.com wrote:

> The real advantage of XHTML is that it is an XML language. So you can
> extend with your own tags by using XML Schema, define your tag
> interpretation and representation by XSLT and XSL:FO, create new kind of
> links by XPointer and XLink. By XML you can define parsed and unparsed
> entities, define new elements, archetypes, model groups, attributes, mix
> different XML languages like MathML or 3D tag languages by prefixing you
> tags by namespaces, and so forth. A plenty of possibilities for
> develoopers of pages. No more dependencies on server sides. 

Interesting.  The advantages of an HTML architecture is that it is an SGML
language.  You could extend it with your own elements, or restrict it.
You could rename elements.  You can change its representation with DSSSL,
you can create new kinds of links with Hytime.  With SGML you can define
parsed and unparsed entities, etc. mix in different SGML architectures like
DSSSL (or what Math ML could be).  There would be even more possibilites
for developers of pages and still no dependencies on server sides.  All
done with ISO standards, no need to make anything new up.

But for some reason SGML is just to difficult to parse.  I don't see why
James Clark can write an SGML parser and give it away, but large companies
with hundreds of employees can't manage.

*sigh*

-- 
Russell O'Connor                           roconnor@uwaterloo.ca
       <http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~roconnor/>
``And truth irreversibly destroys the meaning of its own message''
-- Anindita Dutta, ``The Paradox of Truth, the Truth of Entropy''

Received on Monday, 4 October 1999 10:24:07 UTC