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It's not the enemy by any means. It's a fact.
It's a tool. Use it and be happy. I think if
it has an enemy, it is XHTML. Most of the time,
I tag to some XHTML requirements not from having
studied XHTML, but because I've always been
an end-tagger. I like completed parentheses.
Understand, that at least in the MS frameworks,
we could see a change of attitude where HTML
is yetAnotherFormat and the web browser, just
another app. If Office succeeds in subsuming
all of XML, then it becomes the XML tool suite
of choice for the casual MS XML developer. How
the rest of the world will deal with such is
to be determined, but I won't be surprised to
see them following the MS lead. HTML was a nice
way to get a big splash fast, and a heckuva good
gencode solution for a browser. It isn't a way
to replace an operating system and GUI and that
is where marca steered the web off the rails.
I agree with the bit about the attitude. Scared
me then because it's first attempted victim was SGML and
I knew XML wasn't a complete solution. Ok for
what it did, but there were reasons to think
it couldn't kill off the parent. That wasted
time and effort. We still have been reinventing
piecemeal and I see no end to that. Extreme
leads to that. It is a natural course but
in the end, I think the MSs of the world win
because of it.
len
-----Original Message-----
From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@simonstl.com]
Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 12:55 PM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] RE: SGML On The Web
Len writes:
> Because of HTML, we have essentially a one client
> world and most of what XML does well, works on
> the client. The backend is middle-ware mediated
> adaptors to what are mostly relational db servers.
> So the action is in the access layer and the client.
> The client is frozen in the "won't give up HTML
> until they pry it from our dead cold fingers",
> so that leaves the access layer.
I think you're recapitulating the same mistake that I described in my
previous message here, seeing HTML as the enemy, not as something of
value separate from "more advanced" perspectives.
There are an awful lot of Web developers who are quite frustrated by
HTML. Working in HTML for any period of time, especially up close,
leaves most developers wanting something more. We've had various
solutions - Dynamic HTML, Flash, CSS, and XML.
The ones which have caught on are the ones which integrate most easily
with HTML - CSS and scripting in the forefront. While Flash is widely
available, it's a fairly different toolkit, and I don't believe Flash is
likely to take over the Web whatever Macromedia's press releases might
suggest.
XML appeared with a huge amount of attitude - "let's reinvent linking
and styling" - and very little clear value to Web developers. Even
apart from browser implementation issues, most Web developers never
really got past why, and I don't think the XML community ever made a
good effort at answering why. (I have tried, but don't always find my
own answers convincing.)
Some answers have proven useful over time, and tools like Cocoon and
AxKit make it easier to demonstrate how XML can actually be useful to
Web developers, but I still get a sense that the XML world sees the HTML
world as a problem, not as an opportunity.
Lots of people would like more than HTML - I think that explains a lot
of the interest in XForms and SVG - but don't see much reason to
reinvent the whole thing in XML's image. It's not simply a matter of
bad kudzu.
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