Re: Attempt at HTML 2.1 (tables)

Murray Maloney (murray@sco.COM)
Thu, 22 Jun 95 11:26:43 EDT

Paul Grosso writes:
> > From: Bert Bos <bert@let.rug.nl>
> > To: Multiple recipients of list <html-wg@oclc.org>
> > Subject: Attempt at HTML 2.1 (tables)
> >
> > The current consensus seems to be that between HTML 2.0 and 3.0 there
> > ought to be small, incremental steps, so that eventually nothing
> > controversial remains for HTML 3.0.
> >
> > So here is my attempt at defining such a small, incremental step. The
> > only thing it does is to allow a TABLE element everywhere that a P is
> > allowed, bringing HTML to version 2.1.
> >
> > The table syntax is very simple, with even less attributes than the
> > ones in HTML 3.0, but that may well be enough for HTML.
>
> I agree with the idea of an HTML 2.1 that equals 2.0 plus tables.
> Thanks for doing this, Bert.
>
> I know lots of folks have spent a lot of time discussing tables in
> email and face-to-face, and I am initially concerned that this proposal
> seems to ignore much of the results of that conversation. Despite the
> fact that the table model in some of the latest HTML 3.0 drafts has
> features that I don't like, I'm willing to consider it the result of
> the closest thing we have to date to at least quasi-consensus. I
> suspect you thought that subsetting the latest 3.0 model would make
> it easier to accept for 2.1, but I think this may have been a
> mis-calculation.
>
> However, I particularly wanted to make more of a meta-comment on the
> approach to a 2.1. I think it would be better and easier all around
> if what actually went into the 2.1 spec (DTD and text-wise) minimized
> duplicating 2.0. I especially wanted to highlight this issue DTD-wise.

Thanks Paul. I was just about to write a message with the same
three points. In other words, I agree completely with Paul.
That is, many thanks to Bert for taking the initiative, let's
please incorporate the recent work/discussions on tables,
and let's have a modular approach to incremental changes to the DTD.

One other comment. I note that Bert expected to see something
in link types and relationships by 1996Q3. I sure hope that
we can do better than that.

[...]

Murray