Re: Netscape & New HTML

Dylan Northrup (northrup@chuma.cas.usf.edu)
Thu, 27 Oct 1994 10:45:16 -0400 (EDT)


On Thu, 27 Oct 1994, Alessio Bragadini wrote:

>
> Dylan Northrup <northrup@chuma.cas.usf.edu>:
>
> > The Netscape extensions are not set in stone (they've only
> > released a beta). They might change if there was a intelligent,
> > reasonable suggestion for the change. I'm quite sure if the
> > HTML3 group would make some decisions and submit a final draft
> > the guys at netscape would be more than happy to look at it.
>
> I don't really think so since I've read the Marc Andreesen interview
> in October issue of Wired:

[Quote deleted] Available at the following URL (when Brian finally puts
it up :-):

http://www.wired.com/Etext/2.10/index.html

> They wrote HTML extensions for the browser they want to sell as much
> as possible.

Because there was no other alternative. Give them a reasonable
alternative, and I'm sure they'd at least consider adding in the
markups.

Given a choice of giving a customer what they want and waiting for a
committee to decide on a final draft of something that hasn't been talked
about seriously for months, I'd choose the former every time without
thinking.

> We (or, at least, I) want a documents describing language that can be
> used as well on any browser on any OS on any architecture, helping
> users to organize and find informations all the way down the Web. And
> I'm pretty sure that's the thing that cares to the W3O, much more than
> the 'I want a larger font here' issues.

The problem being, that this is *not* what most of the people who
actually use and peruse the web care about. They *do* care about the
"larger font/centered text/etc." issues. The W3O needs to realise that
and think about the big picture. If they don't, then 5-10 years from
now they'll be a historical footnote in their ivory tower overlooking
some long forgotten off-ramp of the Infobahn.

*****************************************************************************
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*********************************************** via WWW and upon request *
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-----------------------
Random Babylon 5 Quote:
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"Well, after all, no one knows exactly what you look like. That makes
some people nervous."
'Good.'
-- Sinclair and Kosh, "Grail"