Re: docs vs browsers

Bill Janssen (janssen@parc.xerox.com)
Mon, 2 Aug 1993 17:01:59 PDT


Excerpts from ext.WorldWideWeb: 2-Aug-93 docs vs browsers frans van
hoesel@chem.ru (1071*)

> Just as someone editting the soviet exhibit at this very moment (the
> final touch) I can tell you that I, as a writer of the docs, use
> every trick I can to do some formatting.

Well, don't. Or call the format you're using something else, such as
application/xmosaic.

> You might say: "don't do that frans or we'll shoot you", but on the
> other hand, when it is clear that there is a need for this type of
> formatting, why not provide it (instead of making me use nasty tricks)

I completely agree. The point is that there are many many formats which
do provide this capability. Simply use one of them (MS-Word,
Postscript, FrameMaker MIF, TeX, troff, etc.), instead of trying to use
a format which does not provide this kind of thing. The other point is
that while almost all current markup formats are gunked up with
procedural formatting, HTML isn't (too much). It would be nice if there
was *one* format which didn't have these procedural formatting warts.

Dave Raggett is doing a pretty good job of minimizing the amount of
procedural markup that's going into HTML+, which is great!

Bill