Separation of presentation and structure

Eric W. Sink (eric@rafiki.spyglass.com)
Fri, 4 Aug 95 16:48:10 EDT

BTW, note that I changed the subject line here. We need to get the tables
I-D to Last Call in short order, so keeping an accurate subject line on
articles really helps.

>If the
>new standard had <EM style=blink> or something similar users would
>start using that and stop using <BLINK>.

Nope, I don't think they would. One thing that makes the WWW so popular is
that the level of expertise for entry is shockingly low. The WWW embraces
the clueless and uninformed in droves. Virtually no one writes HTML
according to a spec. They use tags they saw someone else using, and test it
only by viewing it with a single browser.

>HTML is alot more than a database language. It is the primary presentation
>language for the web. It therefore needs to contain at least some formatting
>information. Combining structure and presentation isn't always bad,
>especially when your primary purpose is presentation.

Here, I agree with Lou. There's a LOT of money pouring into the WWW right
now, and that money is generally not coming from people who care about
separation of structure and presentation. The Web community has lovingly
grabbed onto many decidedly non-SGML-ish ways of doing things, because when
it comes right down to it, most webmasters do not care at all about the
'SGML Way' or style sheets. They want presentation control.

Just my observations...

--
Eric W. Sink
Senior Software Engineer, Spyglass
eric@spyglass.com