Re: Presentation and Semantics debate
Bill Janssen <janssen@parc.xerox.com>
Message-id: <UgLPyVYB0KGWELUg47@holmes.parc.xerox.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 18:30:09 PDT
Sender: Bill Janssen <janssen@parc.xerox.com>
From: Bill Janssen <janssen@parc.xerox.com>
To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch, Nathan Torkington <Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz>
Subject: Re: Presentation and Semantics debate
In-reply-to: <199308030053.AA08523@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>
References: <199308030053.AA08523@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>
Status: RO
Excerpts from ext.WorldWideWeb: 2-Aug-93 Presentation and Semantics ..
Nathan Torkington@vuw.ac (1541)
> The trouble is that there is a need for hypertext markup that has
> procedural elements. I want to write hypertext, *and* specify some of
> the output (starting a list at (e) for instance).
I only ask that instead of simply saying, "Start the list with (e)", you
say what you mean; that is, *why* the list should start with (e).
> You are effectively preventing me from doing something, and this isn't on.
But you are preventing *me* from doing something, if you add procedural
markup. Is your cause more just than mine?
> It's designed for interactive browsing by humans and possible indexing
by a computer, and as such should be tailored for these purposes.
And both of these purposes are better served by *generic* markup than
procedural. Procedural markup shines in many places where you don't
want the reader to be able to control the presentation (that is, since
he doesn't know why that list starts at (e), he can't instruct his
browser to present it in a form more amenable to his personal handicaps
or advantages), or when you don't care if they understand the text:
Advertising, or propaganda, or many forms of rhetoric. Art (poetry!).
Again, this is not just random
who-likes-which-kind-of-markup-format-better. Please read the article
I've cited.
But