CSS2 and Core Styles

[John M. Morris]

On Fri, 15 May 1998, Roy Tennant wrote:

> When I read this I remembered the time when Gopher was king. Those of us
> heavily involved with Gopher didn't see the value in marking up text for
> the Web -- there simply wasn't enough payoff for the labor. That was
> before Mosaic.

Well the second Mosiac hit enyone could see it's advantages over any other
existing format: Graphics mixed with hypertext in a platform neutral way. 

Where is the nice bullet summary of CSS and XML's promised advantages?  I
keep reading about both of them but still have not see it.  I like CSS
because it degrades gracefully and might encourage a few people to
actually return to coding HTML as a markup language and leave the
appearance to style sheets.  But most people are expecting CSS to make
HTML into PDF and they are going to be disillusioned. (Why they don't just
use pdf today and stop experimenting is a different question, one best
left to medical science.) And darned if I know what XML is even claimed to
offer.  All I ever see is blue sky about 'rich interactive applications'
which really sound like a Ziff Davis way of saying Applications.  And JAVA
can do that today, and is not likely to be supplanted anytime soon by
something that is still basically in the taking stage of design.

> learning the new technology until they can't ignore it anymore. Where you
> fall is up to you to decide, but if you think that once you learn HMTL it
> is now ok to stop learning, you're wrong. You're very, very wrong.  

Hey I don't mind playing with new toys, I just don't like being a lemming
following the latest craze.  For every Mosiac there are several crazes
like Push technology, ActiveX, Web/TV integration (fill in your favorite
dead/dying technology here) and pundits pontificating that they are the
next BIG thing and that ignoring it will make you a fossil. 

I especially resist when they are as dangerous as XML.  It has the
potential to cause far more havok than even these latest zany copyright
laws working their way through Congress. 

John M.      http://www.dtx.net/~jmorris         This post is 100% M$ Free!
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