Re: CSS and SGML document formatting -Reply

On Thu, 25 Apr 1996 22:00:49 +0200, you wrote:

>>   [Doug Rand:]
>> 
>>   | As a standards body,  W3 should make a choice of which style mechanism
>>   | is the right one for HTML.  Having [more than one] isn't acceptable.
>>                                         ^^^^^^^^^
>> 
>Well,  it was,  after all,  my fault for not stating it properly.
>I'm still in the position of wanting a single style sheet solution.
>What's been misunderstood is that my concern is more of a political
>one than a technical one.  It seems acceptable to me that HTML has
>a solution which isn't the general SGML solution.  I see no real
>flaw with this.

But exactly this poses a political problem: The proponents of DSSSL
would strongly oppose, if CSS were to be made the only approved style
sheet language for the Web. On the other hand, DSSSL is not widely
accepted in the Web user community, and the availability of style
sheet based formatting would be postponed for a long time.
 
>But I worry as a developer that I may have to support
>not one,  but two different systems which will make my browser eat that
>much more runtime memory.
>

There is the implementor side. What about the user/Web author side?

Suppose you were a Web author ready to write style sheets in CSS,
DSSSL-O and DSSSL. There would be browsers supporting

- no style sheets
- CSS only
- DSSSL-O only
- DSSSL
- CSS and DSSSL-O
- CSS and DSSSL

What would you do?

Regards

Wolfgang
Buero fuer Software-Entwicklung           Email: rieger@bse.de
                                          WWW  : http://www.bse.de/
Rosenheimer Str. 214                      Phone: +49 89 497738	
81669 Munich, Germany                     Fax  : +49 89 497738

Received on Friday, 26 April 1996 10:09:45 UTC