Re: Concerns about HTML+ complexity

waterbug@epims1.gsfc.nasa.gov (Steve Waterbury)
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Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 18:33:55 +0200
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From: waterbug@epims1.gsfc.nasa.gov (Steve Waterbury)
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www0.cern.ch>
Subject: Re: Concerns about HTML+ complexity
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Ken Fox wrote:

> The point I was trying to make is that as software gets more and more
> difficult to build (i.e. it's complexity increases) fewer and fewer people
> are willing to expend the effort required to build it.... 
  [... examples of free s/w and levels of complexity ...]
> If I apply this reasoning to HTML+, then there must be some point at which a
> browser becomes so complex that very few people are willing (or able?) to
> implement one.  Obviously we are not yet at that point with HTML.  (Looking
> at the popularity of Mosaic vs. other browsers though, it seems that HTML is
> already hard enough to implement that browsers are not casual undertakings.)

Several developments will help to manage the increasing complexity for 
Web browser and even viewer developers, including definition of a Common 
Client Interface and ways of "modularizing" the HTML spec.  There will 
certainly always be a place for powerful, commercially-developed browsers 
& viewers, but the situation seems comparable to that for X Window 
Managers, of which there are several very good free ones.  The WWW 
technologies are, after all, _OPEN_ (as opposed to most commercial desktop 
publishing and/or hypermedia environments).  

> We could probably say that the goal of the current HTML+ specification is to
> provide desktop-publishing-like content and presentation to HTML....  

I perceive it as more like "to provide a baseline of content and 
presentation capability to HTML and the capability for browsers to 
interact with sophisticated accessories for more powerful presentation 
modes."

> ...  Web browsers
> will start to look an awful lot like desktop-publishing applications.  

I think it's rather that Web browsers + their "accessory aplets" will ....

> How many freely available desktop publishing tools do you know?  Who dominates
> the desktop-publishing market?  How easy is it to make a desktop-publishing
> application?  Who controls the desktop-publishing document format standard?

That last question is pretty interesting ... I would say the answer is 
changing!  The applications you are talking about here are analogous to HTML 
_editors_, not _browsers_.  I agree that the realm of HTML _editors_ 
will be dominated by commercial products.  Let's be real:  HoTMetaL is 
really a "loss-leader" for its commercial version -- and I for one 
think that's just dandy, thanks!  Even so, I am sure there will 
always be the emacs extensions, etc. ....

Steve Waterbury

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Stephen C. Waterbury                EPIMS:  EEE Parts Information
Code 310.A, NASA/GSFC                           Management System 
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