[WEB4LIB] Re: XHTML 1.0

[Peter C. Gorman]

At 10:29 AM -0800 1/27/00, Darryl Friesen wrote:
>I think they're still valid since HTML and XHTML are (fairly) different.
>More like "oranges are better than rotting oranges".

But they're not different in a way that's relevant to the comparison 
being made: a class vs. an instance. It's as if they're arguing that 
HTML is better than fiddle.html because fiddle.html only talks about 
music, but HTML can talk about anything. This is not a useful 
contrast. If they're going to make comparative value judgements, they 
should compare similar objects. XML's virtues and shortcomings are 
independent of HTML's.

I think a more productive way to frame the comparison might run along 
these lines: Browser A is better than Browser B because A can process 
any XML language, while B can only process one language, HTML. SGML's 
flexibility made it difficult to write browsers like A (hence the 
single-language browser B), but XML makes the job easier, etc...

_______________________________
Peter C. Gorman
Senior Technology Librarian
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Library Technology Group
pgorman at library.wisc.edu
(608) 265-5291

What's the difference between fiddle players and government bonds?
Government bonds eventually mature and earn money.