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Re: [xml-dev] XHTML survival rate?
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In a message dated 10/04/02 20:51:21 GMT Daylight Time, simonstl@simonstl.com writes:
Until and unless XHTML does more interesting things than HTML 4, I don't
think it's going to go anywhere. Web developers can't seem to get past
the "why" question, and the W3C's seemingly obsessive fascination with
validation and constraints is less than compelling to designers who have
to explain to their clients why XHTML is worth the extra work.
I guess many people view the Web differently than those who want one machine to communicate to another as the dominant paradigm of what the Web will be about.
(Microsoft Internet Explorer still doesn't seem to have noticed the
XHTML namespace, which doesn't help matters, and tool support in general
has been slow in coming.)
Tool support is quite likely lagging because a) tool developers also don't see the advantages of XHTML 1.0 and b) because the customers of tool developers aren't asking for XHTML support as something that is important to them.
I've written a (weak-selling) book on XHTML and run the XHTML-L mailing
list. I sincerely wish XHTML would take off, if only to give Web
developers a firm starting point from which to explore XML. XML tools
and XHTML feel like a natural combination to me, but I see little real
takeoff.
SVG seems to be having more of an impact, at least from what I've seen
and heard at conferences.
I think SVG has significant practical advantages for many mapping and technical diagram applications. That is a powerful pull forward for SVG. Graphic designers, who are often orientated towards Macromedia Flash are slower to appreciate SVG's advantages.
But SVG is also already, even in version 1.0, usable as a Web page authoring tool, see
www.svgspider.com/
www.xmml.com
www.edititwrite.com
as examples. You will need the Adobe SVG Viewer (www.adobe.com/svg).
The pages above use only declarative SVG. Combining SVG with JavaScript adds layers of power to the equation. Many who come to SVG are not experienced in programming the XML DOM, the CSS DOM or the SVG DOM so are currently struggling at points. But once some decent books covering the topic appear then I expect SVG to explode in a way similar to what happened to HTML several years back. The always accessible SVG source code is a great learning tool.
Andrew Watt
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