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RE: What is wrong with SVG?

• From: "Liam R. E. Quin" <liamquin@i...>
• To: Don Park <donpark@d...>
• Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 19:50:42 -0500 (EST)

Is this all an Intel conspiracy to sell 1GHz PCs to run web browsers?

Interchange of 2d graphics is, a very difficult problem to solve.
But is XML the right approach, and, if it is, is the DOM appropriate?

I saw the DOM as a compromise effort to get Microsoft and Netscape
to agree on an API for browser access.  I don't like it as a general
panacea for an XML API.  For one thing, it assumes that a node has
only one parent, making reuse of components difficult.  If you
wwanted to give access to a Unix file system using DOM, you'd have to
decide what to do about linked files (hard links, not symbolic, which
are like entity refs).

This is not to criticise the DOM, because it succeeded in its
objective, as I see it, to a very large degree. It's to criticise
projects that use the DOM without asking why they are doing so.

Do I want DOM access to graphics?  Well, not particularly.  I'd
rather have functions like IntersectedArea(path1, path2).

The wonderful thing about PostScript is that the same graphics model
is used at every level, including within glyphs.  Does this mean
we need SVG fonts, adding yet more complexity?

Lee

-- 
Liam Quin, Barefoot Computing, Toronto;  The barefoot programmer
Ankh on irc.sorcery.net, http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/
co-author, The XML Specification Guide
forthcoming: The Open Source XML Database Toolkit


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