[WEB4LIB] Re: 99.9% of web sites obsolete?

[David Jones]

>>> "Jerry Kuntz" <jkuntz at ansernet.rcls.org> 09/12/02 05:48AM >>>
What are the options now for someone to create web pages without
extensive training? FrontPage at $169.00? Dreamweaver at $399.00?
Perhaps this explains why blogging has become so popular--it's taking
the content back to people, rather than professional media producers. I
wonder if those whose serve on standards committees bother thinking
about this, or whether they just consider agreement upon a standard--any
standard--to be a sufficient democratizing tool.
<<<

Jerry,

Blogging would not be possible today without the hard work of trained,
elite designers that design the blogging mechanisms according to those
more complex and better defined standards. There is absolutely nothing
less democratic about the current standards, because any newbie can put
up a XHTML 1.1-strict compliant page of information any time they want.
It just probably won't look the way they want. That is because
information is easy, good design is hard regardless of the tools used to
create it. Nothing will ever really change that. Even the most beautiful
blog required a trained designer with the right tools and time at some
point in its creation.

And there are plenty of very good editors out there that are either
free or very inexpensive:

Amaya (from the w3c themselves): http://www.w3.org/Amaya/
HTMLkit: http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
emacs: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html
(and add-on wikis:
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?CategoryHypermedia &
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?CategoryXML )
bbedit lite (mac only):
http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit_lite.html

And probably tons of others.

HTH,
David


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David Jones                         
Library Systems Manager III         
Orradre Library                      
mailto:djones at scu.edu
phone: 408-551-7167
fax:   408-551-1805
http://www.scu.edu/library/


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