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I can't say that I see much future in extending HTML.
It's like planting bermuda among kudzu. HTML
has perfectly replicated the lifecycle of every
genCoded markup design. No surprise to the vets; it
works because it is the easiest to learn, code and
use; it dies at the overlaps with other ecosystems,
so it tends to evolve into a monkeygrass for edge
filling. A web browser as a content container
is and should be a freebie for light content;
making it an application engine targeted to
obsolete the operating system is a horrible mistake
but it seems a lot of people bought into that
idea and still do.
I like the namespace approach because it is cleaner.
I don't follow those discussions, so I may be missing
some finer points. Because XHTML just didn't get
traction and because developers are waking up to
the fact that application markup standards are
trivial next to framework standards, I expect
the competition to heat up and become something
worth watching as Longhorn nears release. Smarter
groups will learn to bind an object model to the
markup model IN the specification.
I spent the morning looking at the latest articles
on WinFS. Wow. I have the same feeling I had when
I first encountered object-oriented programming
a la Booch: so many possibilities that the Medusa
effect sets in and my brain freezes.
len
From: Joshua Allen [mailto:joshuaa@microsoft.com]
> browser is the bay window onto web content for human
> consumption, as you point out, and there is no reason to
> change that just because the web specifications are becoming
> moribund. I'm glad to read that the IE team is back at work.
Yeah, as the "bay window" the browser still is of utmost importance. I
personally am impressed by the more pragmatic attitude that some browser
vendors seem to be taking now [0], going with whatever works best for
the user and can get consensus among browser vendors, rather than doing
user-hostile things in the name of purity to some random irrelevant
spec. In fact, the Hyatt discussion has morphed in a sense into a
discussion about namespaces in HTML [1], and the remarkable thing is
that *none* of these people are suggesting the facist route of "force
the whole world to use XHTML and only then will it work!". That's a
good sign, IMO.
[0] http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2004_07.html#005928
[1] http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2004/07/12/ExtendingHTML
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