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

• To: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: What are the arguments *for* XHTML 2.0?
• From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>
• Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 23:11:03 -0800
• In-reply-to: <r01050400-1022-335D462CFE6811D6B3280003937A08C2@[192.168.124.21]>
• References: <r01050400-1022-335D462CFE6811D6B3280003937A08C2@[192.168.124.21]>
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Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> paul@p... (Paul Prescod) writes:
>
> >What I don't understand is why XHTML 2 is NOT taking a bold swing at an
> >interesting new problem domain. What if it supported rich GUIs? What if
> >it brought metadata to the masses? what if it was tightly bound to SVG
> >so that every element could be filtered and transformed.
>
>
> Speaking as someone who's been using HTML for about eight years, I 
> have to say I can't really imagine why I'd want any of those things 
> directly in XHTML. XUL is interesting stuff, SVG is interesting stuff, 
> and RDF is interesting stuff, but those are all things that go well 
> with XHTML, notthings that need to be bonded tightly with XHTML. 

That's a fair point of view. But are you willing to accept there may be 
a day when the problems XHTML set out to solve are considered to be 
adequately solved?

>
> I think there's already an experiment which attempted "bold new ideas
> for the Web", and I have to say its failure in that area has been 
> rather catastrophic.  Five years on I'm only starting to see Web 
> developers consider XML a benefit rather than a nuisance, and XSLT's 
> learning curve a plus rather than a minus.  I've yet to see anyone 
> outside the XML community even express an interest in XLink or XPointer.

How will they feel about yet more XML stuff shoved down their throat in 
XHTML 2 if there is no clearly articulated vision of how it will make 
their lives easier or better?

> >From the (20, not counting my postings) responses I got on webdesign-l
> last night, there are certainly people who find what XHTML 2.0 is doing
> to be interesting.

Please elaborate. _What_ do they find interesting? What problems do they 
have that XHTML 2 will solve?

> There are also some who find XHTML 2.0 as relevant
> as CSS 3.0 - in other words, not.  I found no sentiment suggesting that
> XHTML 2.0 should be halted.  I also found little sentiment favoring more
> radical change than what's been proposed.

I didn't ask for it to be halted. I asked for it to have a clear 
statement of goals and acceptance requirements.

> I'm not sure the XML community is a reasonable barometer for what is 
> or is not appropriate to the future of (X)HTML, and perhaps for once 
> we should leave such decisions to people who are actually focused on 
> HTML. 

I use HTML most days as I'm sure, do many other people on the list.

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