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Re: Richtext

1992-02-08 13:54:18
    Nathaniel Borenstein's reply to my request for a <comment> which
behaves like all the other tags is most alarming.

Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb(_at_)thumper(_dot_)bellcore(_dot_)com> writes:
|   
|   The comment issue is a real red herring.  This has been argued
|   over and over in programming language circles.  The current
|   richtext comment syntax is a lot like C comments.  You want
|   something more like -- well, I can't think offhand of any
|   programming languages in which comments nest, actually, although
|   I'm sure there must be some.  But the point is, the model is not
|   so weird.  Big chunks of the world program in it all the time.

    Nathaniel, markup languages are not programming languages.

    Markup languages talk _about_ the content, and it's the content
which is important.  The markup is a means to express what kind of
content it is, how it should be presented, etc.  Moreover, markup is
intermixed with the content, and more than half the rules for markup
languages are concerned with how to recognize markup from content.

    In programming languages, there is no "content" in the program
source -- the nearest thing would be the input to the program when
run.  This difference has major impact on the role of comments,
although they may appear to serve the same purposes: hiding content/
code, and providing information about the document or markup/code.

    Furthermore, people _write_ documents, they don't _program_ them.
Whatever is appropriate for a programmer is usually wildly off mark
for a non-programmer.  I'm quite astonished at your cavalier attitude
to the non-programmers out there.  You imply that non-programmers who
are not used to the non-intuitive comment syntax in C are second class
users.  Quite frankly, I'm appalled.

    If there are any other manifestations of this attitude in the
richtext specification, it should be ripped out of MIME immediately,
until non-programmers and text encoding and markup people can have a
look at it.

|   This is not to say that I particularly CARE which syntax we use for
|   comments, just that, as with the rest of richtext syntax, it just
|   doesn't matter very much.  What matters, I repeat again, is that
|   richtext exist, not that it be perfect or aesthetically delightful.

    This line of argument reminds me of when the Norwegian government
nationalized two major banks this past fall.  A massive disregard for
due process and a consistent willingness to gloss over flaws and
critique is the hall-mark of people with shady business on their mind,
and/or some hidden agenda.

    I haven't had the time to go back to look at the discussion which
ensued right after richtext was released, but the comments to the
effect that richtext was essentially forced upon the community should
be regarded with great concern by the chairman of this WG, as well as
the IESG.  The last thing we need is RFC authors with political
motives they won't even disclose.

    This doesn't mean I think richtext is a bad idea, just that it
needs a review by people with real interest in it, apart from the
authors.

Regards,
</Erik>
--
Erik Naggum       |  +47-295-0313     |  ISO 8879 SGML     |  Memento,
Naggum Software   |                   |  DIS 10744 HyTime  |  terrigena.
Boks 1570, Vika   | <erik(_at_)naggum(_dot_)no>  |  JTC 1/SC 18/WG 8  |  
Memento,
0118 OSLO, NORWAY | <enag(_at_)ifi(_dot_)uio(_dot_)no> |  SGML UG SIGhyper  |  
vita brevis.

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