

Re: Can XML really replace HTML?

From: Martin Kiehn <mkiehn@jcsbs.lanobis.de>
Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 16:39:22 +0200
To: www-html@w3.org
Message-Id: <99050516404602.03583@homebase>
On Fri, 30 Apr 1999, Christian Ottosson wrote:
>Good morning!
>Sometimes when people talk about XML, it sounds like they want HTML to be
>replace by it. For instance there should be no reason to develop HTML
>further. I can't see how it can be replaced. So can someone please tell me?
>Maybe they just distinguish XHTML from HTML.
>Let me explain my point of view. If you serve my browser an XML file with
>non HTML (or XHTML) elements and give reasonable names to them, like
>"warning", "marginalia" or "biggestheader",  I can understand what your
>intention is, when and if I read the source. But I can't expect my browser
>to have a clue what the logical meaning of you own element is and it can
>just blindly follow your style sheet. And I can't write a user style sheet
>for all of them. The result would be a pure layout file without the
>struktural meanings of a HTML file.
>For me XML is a great language for the database which are transformed
>(Probably with XSL) into the proper version of HTML, TeX etc before it is
>served to the end user.
>Can someone please put me on the right track if I've got something
>completely wrong here. Or else, stay by HTML/XHTML on the WWW.
>Christian Ottosson

XML replaces SGML but not HTML. SGML and XML are a kind of sub layers for HTML.
Look at the specs for more informations.

Martin Kiehn <mkiehn@jcsbs.lanobis.de>
Received on Wednesday, 5 May 1999 10:40:52 GMT
