Re: XBL is (mostly) W3C redundant, and CSS is wrong W3C layer for semantic behavior *markup*

Before I respond to David below...

Constructive criticism/suggestion to W3C...It amazes me that the W3C, an
international standards organization, would allow major portions of their
web site to be down (intermitent) for the last 3 days.   The mailing lists
have been unreachable and/or extremely delayed (days).  Sometimes over past
3 days, the main site can not be reached.  According to my tracert, it is
some server at mit.edu.  Seems to me the W3C should be hosted commercially
(e.g. Rackspace.com) which has 24 x 7 staffing, even on holidays.  Seems
unprofessional is it to be arguing for W3C standards to rule the web, if
W3C can not maintain 99.9% uptime on their own site.  Given how dogmatic we
can be about support for other cultures in web standards, note there are
some that do not celebrate Christmas or western calendar.


At 04:41 PM 12/28/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>
>> This is IMHO an error, in the case of the Web. 95% of it does not care
>> about structuration of the data. 
>
>Probably true.
>
>>                                  95% of the web needs a an almost
>                                                  ^^^^^
>"wants", not "needs".


I have an interesting perspective on this because of the 1000s of novices
we support on Cool Page, with it's pixel perfect layout (bastardization of
HTML).

Ironically, although users want web layout to be like page layout, they
then complain that their web pages are not optimally viewable (without
horizontal scrolling) in every browser window size.

This mismatch of "wants" and "needs" (very good point David!) is the
fundamental reason we are doing an complete overhaul.  It is why we are
here trying to get the necessary momentum behind the few missing links in
key standards.  We have devised a radical new paradigm for marrying these
"wants" and "needs" so that semantic web can prosper.  This is vaporware at
the moment.


>> pixe-fine rendering based on languages so simple to learn, use, update,
>> maintain AND extend, that the TCO of a web site can be neglected
>
>Most of the operating costs of web sites is in forcing HTML to be 
>a page description language.


It is a cost, but I think the bigger cost is that the people who design the
page or not the ones who program it.  Again the mismatch above.  It is a
key marketing insight that drives our valuation of Cool Page concept.

I am probably revealing too much of our strategic business intellectual
property (IP), but any way, I am a person who loves to share.  The end goal
after all is for better life for every one.


>The real question is why do people try to use HTML for a purpose for
>which older technology, like PDF, is more appropriate (I think it comes
>down to a failure of the owners of that technology to realise the need
>for internet links (limited use for commercial sites) and incremental loading
>soon enough, and that they failed to provide "free" entry level authoring
>tools - HTML originally could be hand coded by students and even now basic
>authoring tools are bundled).


And that .pdf won't appear in the browser window as reliably as .html.  On
my notebook, there is some issue that cause .pdf not to appear unless I
have Acrobat running.  I probably haven't properly configured the plugin.
In any case, I do not have need or time to fool with it.  Case in point.
The web is not the most important thing in 95% of people's lives.

Also the main reason is probably because although people do "want"
presentation specific layout, they also realize they "need" semantic web,
such as search engines (Google), etc..

Utimately imo we need solutions that marry both.  That is my goal.  It
should be possible for designer and visitors to have fine control over the
gradations between the two ways of structuring data (presentation specific
and semantic), and to that extent determine at what level they co-exist.

-Shelby Moore

Received on Sunday, 29 December 2002 18:30:56 UTC