Re: Some thoughts on an extensible hypertext markup language

> The current debate on which elements to retain in XHTML, which
> to add, and which to expunge, leads me once again to suggest
> that no matter which elements are included and which are
> excluded, the resulting language will satisfy no-one.

I agree. This is a little bit like defining a (voluntary) meeting date in a
group larger than 20 people -- somebody only has time at thursday, someone
not wants to meet on saturday, a few prefer the weekend and so on... (Maybe a
bad example, but I guess you know what I mean).

> I continue
> to believe that the only way in which such a language can be
> truly satisfactory is if it is extensible in a simple and
> straightforward way, such that every author and his dog can
> create the exact dialect that he/she needs for the document
> at hand.

Exactly -- and that is the way I understand XHTML's role, by giving
structural markup and polishing it with CSS.

> A couple of months ago, I lay in bed and thought
> about how such a minimal language might look, and sent the
> essence of those thought processes to Chris Rowley, a friend and 
> colleague at the Open University.  In brief, I came to the 
> conclusion that a minimal extensible hypertext markup language 
> ("MXHTML") might need as few as four containers, although 
> Chris suggested that a few more would be necessary.

Hehe, I would appreciate a similar way constructing a very simple and really
extensible Markup language, like I suggested yesterday (by beginning to
remove some presentation elements from the XHTML recommendation).

> If anyone is
> interested in reading my original message, and possibly
> even commenting on it, I have archived it at 
> 
> 	Http://Www.Rhul.Ac.Uk/Staff/Chaa006/XTML/

Link does not work.


Regards,
 Jens Meiert.


-- 
Jens Meiert

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Received on Tuesday, 13 May 2003 02:30:18 UTC