RE: Custom markup

> From:	JOrendorff@ixl.com [SMTP:JOrendorff@ixl.com]
> 
	 
> Suppose I'm translating a non-HTML document (like any of the
> examples above) to XHTML.  My goals are:
	[DJW:]  
	I think that, if structure is most important to you,
	you should use general SGML or XML, not try and
	expand [X]HTML to take over (this tends to be the fate
	of all standardisation - a new standard is invented that
	fits a niche well, it becomes popular, then everyone tries
	to extend it so that it becomes yet another general purpose
	tool, many of which already existed).

	Linux and some other open source documentation uses the (SGML)
	docbook DTD, which is much richer in the sort of constructs 
	needed in formal documentation, rather than using HTML, HTML
	is converted out of docbook if people cannot cope with the
	docbook form.

	On the other hand, Word 2000 makes a travesty of XHTML by
	trying to put all the WYSIWYG formatting into the XHTML
	document.

	If the presentation is important, you should use 
	a page description language, like PDF (or its relative,
	Postscript).

	If you must serve both communities, you should use HTTP
	contents negotiation (with a default to the page description,
	on the basis that those sophisticated enough to be able
	to use structural markup are the only ones likely to know
	how to configure their tools to do proper negotiation).
>   
>

Received on Wednesday, 12 April 2000 06:51:33 UTC