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I've been following the discussion and, being an advocate of both XML and SGML, I thought I should throw in my two cents worth. As I understand it, there are two distinct activities that occur on the web which I see being lumped together in these discussions. The first activity is browsing and the second activity is the exchange of data between applications over the web/Internet/intranet. SGML is designed for documention. A browser is a tool to render marked-up documentation into a form formatted for human readability. In this usage SGML is superior to XML, and it makes sense that we should have SGML browsers because this gives enterprises a way to... well ... browse ... their repositories of SGML documentation. Which in many domains is considerable -- millions of pages in aerospace, and I'm sure the Aussie Hansard is considerably more. So, why on earth would we want to abandon SGML browsers for XML browsers? XML is designed for data transer, or at least that is my understanding, and most XML documents are not going to be viewed by people but be generated by one application, squirted over to another applicaiton which parses it and throws away the XML. once it has wrung the data out of the document. (Simplfying the process perhaps) Remember the SGML was not developed as a internet data exchange tool -- at the time there was also a Berlin Wall, Watergate was still a hot topic and Disco ruled. SGML is industrial strength and more than we need for this data transfer, especially when we have to write those applications. XML was designed as a data exchange tool, not as a competitor to SGML. Two good tools that work well when you use them for their intended purpose. Regards Rod
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