Re: Question about Stylable SVG

--- Håkon Wium Lie <howcome@opera.com> wrote:
>  >
>  > Two SVGs is a terrible idea.
> 
> Indeed. My suggestion is: get the specification 
> back on track by removing the recently 
> introduced "Exchange SVG".

I think in addition to removing "Exchange SVG",
"Stylable SVG" needs to be simplified. After all,
the reason they came up with "Exchange SVG" is because
they thought "Stylable SVG" is not suitable for
interchange.

Currently you need an enormous amount of resources
to create a complete SVG viewer. So much so, in fact,
that even big companies have no confidence that they
will be able to implement everything any time soon.

For example, here is a snippet from a message from
jferraio@Adobe.COM:
   "One major problem with wrapped XML inside of an
   SVG 'foreignObject' is that it is unlikely any
   implementations will be supporting this anytime 
   soon."

One of the goals of SVG apparently was to leverage
and integrate with other W3C specifications. This is
a laudable goal, but it has resulted in a spec that
few companies have the wherewithal to implement.

To make a very good implementation of SVG you need
to have domain expertise not just in graphics 
technology, but also in traditional browser 
technologies such as (X)HTML and CSS. No companies
have expertise in both areas. Certainly, small
companies will find SVG unapproachable.

SVG is different from most other W3C specs in that
it won't be browser-makers that implement the best
viewers -- it will be graphics companies. These
graphics companies don't also have access to a ready
stack of other web-related technologies.

I think SVG spec should have taken this into
consideration, and limited how much of the other W3C
standards SVG leverages.

I hope SVG will be simplified a bit before it is
made final.

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Received on Wednesday, 8 March 2000 10:24:04 UTC