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Re: What are the arguments *for* XHTML 2.0?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: What are the arguments *for* XHTML 2.0?
• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 09:23:01 -0500
• In-reply-to: <16f.175a082a.2b0cca6b@a...>

AndrewWatt2000@a... writes:
>Oh come on Mike. I gave you and Simon a much fuller formulation of the 
>question and you both start with this type of comment. 
>
>You are both intelligent guys. I am sure that you can separate the
>notion of starting from a complex real world position from the notion
>of how best to proceed from that complex position with all assumptions
>being examined.
>
>Do you genuinely find that distinction difficult to grasp?

The distinction is easy to grasp; the question is much more bluntly
whether proceeding with discussion on the terms you propose is worth the
effort.  I spent far too much time yesterday composing a response that
you appear to find disappointing on first principles, and can't say I
have time today to do the same.

Once upon a time I really hoped that XML would let us discard XHTML and
start anew with an XML-based Web.  That hasn't happened for a wide range
of reasons:

* early XMLites' frequent contempt for the HTML-based Web (and its
support technologies, notably CSS), resulting in a brutal learning curve
for anyone who wanted to send XML to clients.

* the lack of interest on the part of Web developers, who couldn't see a
whole lot of point in using XML instead of XHTML, especially given the
dominance of legacy browsers that had no clue about XML.

* the lack of interest at a certain large browser vendor in presenting
XML with CSS in the browser, perhaps originating from but certainly
further reinforcing the two above trends.

I don't see any point whatsoever to starting from a clean sheet of
paper.  

I've yet to hear any reasons from you why XHTML should be discarded so
bluntly, only questions about how the world might be improved if we did.
Given that I regard the reinvigoration of HTML as critical to getting
the Web moving again, I have a hard time taking seriously the proposal
that we spend enormous amounts of time discussing a world in which we
start over.

Some parts of the computing world already seem to be starting over, but
I have to admit to finding the Web Services paradigm a repulsive
throwback to a client-server age where the sky was the limit on fees
that don't exist for the Web.  

-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org

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