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Re: What is Tag Soup?

• To: <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: What is Tag Soup?
• From: "Dave Winer" <dave@u...>
• Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 11:26:42 -0700
• References: <EBEPLGMHCDOJJJPCFHEFMEDIIBAA.danny666@v...>

Danny, you've just put your finger on the philosophical argument that
occupies many of us for our whole lives.

The struggle to judge --> to know if something or someone is good or bad, or
as George W Bush says, evil.

You could ask the same question about death. Is it good or bad that we die?
It's really impossible to know, but if I had to make a choice I'd say it's
bad. But does that mean I won't die? Unfortunately not. :-(

So let's agree that tag soup is bad. Let's assume that every format that's
deployed is far worse than the ones we can imagine. It often works that way,
that with a little bit of experience it becomes clear where we could have
done better. It happens in life too. If I could go back and change some of
the decisions I made in my youth I'd be happier, healthier, richer, wiser,
more prolific, more admired, etc etc. But I can't go back and change what I
did. Damn! ;->

Dave


----- Original Message -----
From: "Danny Ayers" <danny666@v...>
To: <dave@u...>
Cc: <xml-dev@l...>
Sent: Saturday, October 12, 2002 10:48 AM
Subject: RE:  What is Tag Soup?


> Though some of the points in the 'Tag Soup' piece [1] are reasonable
enough
> (the web *is* full of tag soup), there seems to be an implied conclusion
> that this is somehow a good thing. I don't think this is a valid
conclusion
> at all. Tag soup leads to a loss of communication, and tag soup inspired
> design does this systematically.
>
> The web is growing not only in the number of hosts, but also in its
> complexity - web services, semantic web, even blogger tricks like
trackback
> all contribute in this respect. Complex needn't mean troublesome though.
> Things like REST aim to avoid the Big Ball of Mud pattern [2], and
although
> the breaking of rules is often a creative activity, following good
practice
> reduces system breakage. The Big Ball of Mud pattern does work, but it
means
> a lot of wasted resources (mostly human).
>
> In a nutshell, I don't think "that's the way the world should be" follows
> from "that's the way the world is".
>
> Cheers,
> Danny.
>
> [1] http://scriptingnews.userland.com/whatIsTagSoup
> [2] http://www.laputan.org/mud/mud.html
>
>
> ---
> Danny Ayers
> <stuff> http://www.isacat.net </stuff>
>
> Idea maps for the Semantic Web
> http://ideagraph.net
>
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Jelks Cabaniss [mailto:jelks@j...]
> >Sent: 11 October 2002 22:53
> >To: xml-dev@l...
> >Subject: RE:  What is Tag Soup?
> >
> >
> >G. Ken Holman wrote:
> >
> >> At 2002-10-11 07:19 -0700, Dave Winer wrote:
> >> >What is Tag Soup?
> >
> >"HTML" -- as practised by most (from Joe Homepager to Fortune 500).
> >
> >> I have used this term in my instruction for years to
> >> characterize the jumble of angle brackets acting like tags
> >> in HTML in pages that are accepted by browsers.  Improper
> >> minimization, overlapping constructs ... stuff that looks
> >> like SGML markup but the creator didn't know or respect SGML
> >> rules for the HTML vocabulary.  In effect a soupy collection
> >> of text and markup.
> >
> >... usually for visual effects in typical desktop graphical browsers.
> >It can also be well-formed -- a number of "HTML" editors do this when
> >you press the "indent" button several times:
> >
> >  <blockquote>
> >    <blockquote>
> >      <blockquote>
> >        This ain't no quote, but it's indented good,
> >        ain't it?
> >      </blockquote>
> >    </blockquote>
> >  </blockquote>
> >
> >Cheap FOs.
> >
> >> I've never seen the term defined anywhere.
> >
> >It was first mentioned on Usenet in December, '95 by Arjun Ray
> >(according to Google Groups.)  Three years before -- December, '92 --
> >Dan Connolly wrote this to Tim Berners-Lee:
> >
> >      ...
> >    I'm just about to give up on the structure business. Do any
> >    implementations have problems with <TITLE> elements in the
> >    middle of the document? If not, I can just change the DTD so
> >    that HTML is just "tag soup" -- anything goes anywhere.
> >      ...
> >
> >
> >/Jelks
> >
> >
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>
>
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• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: What is Tag Soup?
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
  • RE: What is Tag Soup?
    • From: "Danny Ayers" <danny666@v...>

• References:
  • RE: What is Tag Soup?
    • From: "Danny Ayers" <danny666@v...>

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