Re: Nonstandard HTML

[Chet Ensign <Chet_Ensign%LDS -at- NOTES -dot- WORLDCOM -dot- COM>]

Arlen replies to Geoff's posting thus:

> The marketplace has in the past, and will in the future, ignore standards
> bodies whenever it feels like it. W3 is no exception to this, and as you
> pointed out, they have nearly squandered what intellectual capital they
> had.

How true. But what -- and I think that Geoff has been trying to push the
discussion in this direction -- does the ignoring of those standards mean to
us, the content producers.

Trouble.  **If** we go along with their game by coding HTML to their
<quote>standards</quote> **Then** we damage our content in the long run for
some graphical gratification in the short run.

1) We alienate ever-larger portions of the potential audience by making sure
that our content will look dismal on their screen

2) We assure ourselves of a growing data maintenance nightmare as the
<quote>standards</quote> evolve

3) We by no means assure ourselves that at least it will look as good as it
always did because in the vendor wars of attrition, nobody is promising us
backwards compatibility.

Netscape may look like the market leader right now, but I think we as info
owners, need to look for ways to protect our investment in our intellectual
capital by avoiding storing (**not** delivering) our information in **any**
vendor controlled markup.

Best regards,

/chet

Chet Ensign
Logical Design Solutions
465 South Street                            http://www.lds.com
Morristown, NJ  07960                  censign -at- lds -dot- com [email]
201-971-0100 [Phone]                  201-971-0103 [FAX]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Post Message:	TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Get Commands:	LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU with "help" in body.
Unsubscribe:	LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU with "signoff TECHWR-L"
Listowner:	ejray -at- ionet -dot- net