Re: Formatting Objects considered harmful

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 02:54 PM 4/28/99 -0500, you wrote:
>You are missing an important part of Guy's argument. In some cases you the
>consumer have a choice of only the dumbed-down information or none at all.
>The W3C has no hope of changing the business model of these companies and
>it is highly debatable whether they should be trying.

If that's genuinely the case, it seems that XML has been grossly oversold
as cure for the problems of the Web.  I find it highly ironic that XSL,
with its transformations and formatting objects, is so readily capable of
blocking the move toward a meaningful Web that XML was supposed to provide.
 Given that the same group of people seems to be involved in both specs,
the irony is even greater.

The W3C does claim to be the keeper of the Web in some important respects,
and XML did seem to be a key part of that vision.  Tim Berners-Lee
regularly speaks about making search engines and agents actually usable
with the assistance of XML, and I can't say I see how this business model
will square with that dream.

Saying that it doesn't matter if XSL contributes to a dumbed-down Web seems
to ignore the fact that XML was supposed to make that Web smarter, not
stupider.  Given the choices between the Web today and no Web at all, I'll
certainly take the Web.  Given the choice between the Web today and a Web
with meaningful information, I'll take the meaningful Web.  XSL seems to be
making the latter option more difficult, not easier.

>You cannot watch "Sports Night" without commercials either. It is an
>annoying business model but it is a business model that allows me to watch
>sports night.

We already have advertisements, which seem to occupy about 50% of my Web
visits. If selling semantics is going to be a viable business model, we'd
better get back to those micropayments...

Simon St.Laurent
XML: A Primer
Sharing Bandwidth / Cookies
http://www.simonstl.com


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