Pythia: Really bad ideas

Joe English (joe@trystero.art.com)
Fri, 20 Jan 95 21:50:35 EST

There's a new browser on the market, Pythia.
See comp.infosystems.www, <3fporc$8rp@hermes.achilles.net>

An excerpt from the announcement:

Pythia's Web client and server software make use of proprietary
^^^^^^^^^^^
extensions to the standard Web protocols. These extensions give
^^^^^^^^^^
business users of the WWW more security, greater visual impact and
[ etc., etc.,] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If you're as curious as I was, check out:

<URL:http://pythia.com/develop/test/index.html>

WARNING: this is not for the faint of heart.

Netscape's extensions pale in comparison to what
they've come up with.

A few examples -- from <URL:http://pythia.com/develop/test/texmarg.html>

Pythia Extensions to HTML

None. Note, however, that Pythia is unusual in that it interprets the
br (break) tag to mean "page break."

"View source" reveals:

<head>
<title>Text Margins</title>
<!doctype pythia>
</head>

which I thought was interesting.

The way that margins and vector graphics are specified in
this "extended HTML" are particularly, um, well, revolting.

I haven't looked at what they did to HTTP yet.

Another excerpt from the announcement:

Since May 1994, the Pythia technology has been quietly OEMed to
several of the largest systems integration companies in Canada.
Since June 1994, Pythia 1.0 has been shipped worldwide, on all major
Unix platforms, as an on-line document browser for GIS products sold
by SHL Systemhouse.

Should we be worried?

--Joe English

joe@trystero.art.com