Why focus on HTML?

[Len Bullard]

Dave Winer wrote:
> 
> So, if you believe that, as I do, why not channel your energies into spaces
> where there is no installed base? XML opens all kinds of possibilities. Why
> not spread out and focus on implementations that use the net in new ways? Or
> try out some new ideas. Why channel all the energy into a place where not
> much can be done?
> 
> My opinion only..

A good one.  Consider the results if XML applications don't do what some
tried 
with SGML applications:  one size fits all consumers.  Well, you get the
reemergence 
of helper applications (or.. applets) as dominant species.  

Works for real audio.  May be the best way to do 3D.  Altogether, page
integration 
is only meaningful to a given kind of page.  On the other hand, using
operating 
system services is easy to decouple when the protocols are commodities. 
For my 
money, the best idea of the Web was and is HTTP.  The other good idea is
MIME.  
Register types and interoperate through commodity interfaces.  COM is
the best 
CS invention of the 90s.  HTML is GenCoding with Windows.  Cool, because
it 
works, but not much of a conceptual leap.

We already know what happens if HTML is endlessly extended: 
MIL-D-28001.

len


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