A lurker speaks up...

Eric S. Raymond (esr@locke.ccil.org)
Thu, 21 Dec 1995 22:30:40 -0500 (EST)


I've been watching the traffic on this list for about three weeks now, and I
fear I understand less than I did when I came in.

What is the state of HTML standardization? I hear the labels HTML 2.0,
HTML3 and so forth thrown around a lot, but it's also pretty clear that the
class of vendor- and browser-specific tags is large and ill-defined.

Is there, anywhere, a list of all the tags in the known universe with
provenances and compatibility information attached? Is there an RFC,
ISO or ANSI process converging on some description of an HTML standard,
or levels of standardization?

It seems that HTML itself mirrors the web -- incredibly rich, but maddeningly
difficult to pin down when you're looking for specifics. If I were to build
a browser or authoring tool, how would I know what to implement and when to
stop?

--
								>>esr>>