Re: HTML/EML implementation
Daniel W. Connolly ([email protected])
Thu, 17 Feb 1994 17:22:50 --100
In message <[email protected]>, Terry Allen writes:
>(Context: Dan Connolly proposed some simplifications to the use
>of SGML on the Web, which I opposed.)
>
>What it comes down to is that you want to make your job easier
>by eliminating some of the basic functionality of SGML. There
>is no way of doing this in the HTML DTD. You are advocating
>another ML, call it EML for "expedient."
>
>But HTML-conformant docs won't necessarily parse through your client,
>e.g., if they have comments in them. (What will you do about those?
>render them as normal text?) My problem is that
>all the other tools I have will tell me that such docs are valid.
>To make this work, I'd have to take my SGML docs and preprocess
>them, then check to see that they're valid according to your EML.
>
This business of author-validation is a compelling counter-argument
that I only fully considered after I had posted my idea.
I certainly detect a sincere commitment to SGML on the part of
information providers. Now... we just need freely distributable,
_correct_, efficient, reusable implementations in C, perl, and
elisp... That's what constitues a net.standard, I'd say. Hmmm... I
guess we'd better decide on a DTD (or set of architectural forms...)
pretty soon!
Dan