Re: HTML table model suggestion

lee@sq.com
Mon, 3 Apr 95 23:34:23 EDT

Daniel Glazman writes:
> Hmmm. This argument is not valid if you use a SGML editor for authoring.
> In that case, you don't see the structure; only the software has to deal
> with it.

Bernie J Scholz <scholz@oceana.crd.ge.com> wrote:
> Not if I am using a tool like InContext (with the Excel table editor feature
> disabled).

So don't use broken software :-) :-)
Seriously, presumably InContext will eventually support native SGML tables.
In the meantime, there are of course other tools.

Note: I am not impartial: we make Author/Editor...

Much of the complexity of SGML today comes from the idea that people would
be entering it by hand, essentially on punched cards (!). The RS/RE nonsense,
many of the minimisation features, the net enabling start tag (legal in
HTML)... the inability to have two attributes sharing a name value, all are
as much to save typing as anything else.

I am very reluctant to see any such nonsense in HTML.
It's like saying that a URL should use IP numbers and not names in case
someone isn't running the domain name service.

I repeat the offer to anyone writing HTML browsing or editing software
of a free copy of HoTMetaL PRO (if it's commercial software, we might
want a copy of your s/w in exchange or something) so you can see
an existing implementation of (a superset of) HTML 3 tables, and test
for interoperability. Send mail to lee@sq.com, I may take a week or three
to reply, because of travelling to Germany or San Jose or somewhere).

Lee

-- 
Liam Quin, SoftQuad Inc +1 416 239 4801 lee@sq.com   <URL:http://www.sq.com/>
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