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At 11:25 AM 8/31/96 -0800, Mark Loundy wrote:

>Depending on what you mean by "*some* time" you are mistaken. I have been
>talking about this for about a month and a half, but I don't think that
>I've addressed it on this list.

Fair enough -- I hope the tone of my voice there didn't sound obnoxious
(wasn't my intent).

>Microsoft Front Page, ver. 2 of Adobe Page Mill (I'm told) and similar
>products are going to put direct coding out of sight for most people very
>quickly. But just as there are still folks who dip directly into Postscript
>code, there will still be a need for direct knowledge of HTML.

I'll stand by what I said before -- I haven't used them so I shouldn't
comment, however I scan the newsgroups regularly, and often see folks
griping about how those products do bizarre things with their HTML, and to
boot never manage to keep up with current developments in HTML and the other
stuff like JavaScript and VBScript and whatever else is going on. It sounds
like they might be handy for basic markup and/or conversion, but one still
needs to (as of this typing) have a fair understanding of how the stuff
works -- it's still in a different ball park than DTP and so long as
monitors and platforms and flavours of browser and for that matter
processors and RAM capabilities/amounts vary that will remain the case. If I
can draw a loose comparison, imagine if magazines were delivered to us
digitally, and some people on receipt printed them on toilet paper, some on
legal sized bond paper, others on broadsheet newsprint, and others used them
via voice synthesizers.

>The main obstacle to this is the uncertainty of how a given tag will
>manifest itself for the user. But the market is forcing a resolution to
>that.
>
>The concept of HTML as a page mark-up language rather than a layout
>language is fading rapidly. The tug of war between those who contend that
>HTML is not a layout language and the rest of the world is more a religious
>difference than a practical one. The non-believers are driving the bus.

I'd argue they're both "believers" in the sense that some are religious
about treating Web publishing like DTP while others are adamant about this
being different than DTP, HTML is not a layout language, blind people should
have access to the same content as sighted, etc. etc. (you've heard the
arguments).

And in response I'd refer to the paragraph above about the toilet paper.
There is a profound difference between that and what we've come to know as
DTP or regular paper publishing of any ilk. All the more so now that
publication involves much more than simply putting something on the screen,
and will increasingly involve something that  d o e s  something on the
screen, preferably at the client-side. 

Rick




____________________________
Richard Andersen
Calgary, Alberta  CANADA
andersen@canuck.com

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