List archives, HTML/SGML authoring tools, etc.

marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 93 04:39:05 -0500
From: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Message-id: <9304100939.AA03932@wintermute.ncsa.uiuc.edu>
To: Christopher McRae <mcrae@lib.ucsf.edu>
Cc: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Subject: List archives, HTML/SGML authoring tools, etc.
In-reply-to: <9304091947.AA04176@knowman.lib.ucsf.EDU>
References: <9304091947.AA04176@knowman.lib.ucsf.EDU>
X-Md4-Signature: c677b98fe5554a0ffc51197a4c340a6a

Christopher McRae writes:
>   I'm interested in HTML/SGML authoring tools.  Can we have an
> update on the status of any X11-based editor?  We would like to
> start generating HTML and are evaluating which course is the best to
> take.  We could buy a NeXTStep machine, or Framemaker for our Suns.
> But it would really be great if we had an X11-based editor on a par
> with Xmosaic.  I may be able to find the time to contribute to such
> an effort.  How about it, Marc?  What's the prognosis?

We'd like to do it, but we have all kinds of things on our plate right
now and not enough people/time to do them all.  So it's hard to say
when the editor is going to move far enough up the "important todo"
list to be given time and energy, if the current situation holds
(i.e., if nobody dumps a pile of money on our laps).

>   One project we are considering getting started on is integrating the
> Z39.50 information retrieval protocol into WWW.  We're a library and
> Z39.50 is becoming *very* important to us.  Z39.50, by the way, is
> essentially the protocol used by WAIS (with a few caveats).  I have
> yet to take a close look at the WWW-WAIS gateway code.  Comments?

Mosaic has to speak Z39.50 sometime this year -- again, not sure when,
though -- and we're hoping it will be done for us (i.e., in the client
library) but if not we'll probably put work into it.

>   Finally, in http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu:80/www-overview.html, TBL
> says 
>     HTML is eventually going to be a real ``standard''; by
>     the time that happens, it should be fully SGML-compliant.
> What does "real" mean in this context?  Which standards organization(s)
> are involved?

Probably the Internet RFC process (?), which would make it a
"standard" on a roughly equivalent footing with the format of Internet
mail messages, or MIME, or the FTP protocol, or anything else defined
by an RFC.

Cheers,
Marc

--
Marc Andreessen
Software Development Group
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu