Cloture on presentation vs. structure debate

Brandon Plewe (PLEWE@plewe.cit.buffalo.edu)
Thu, 27 Oct 1994 11:09:35 -0400 (EDT)

Perhaps we should vote--the debate is going in circles, and the longer we talk
about it, the more bad solutions will arise--something needs to be _done_. I
see several possible futures (not mutually exclusive) that have been brought up
in this discussion, and I'd like to know what people see as being the best one.
Does someone want to throw up a quick voting form?

1. HTML+++
HTML is continually expanded to include more direct-presentation-control
tags, some accepted by the HTML WG, some done ad hoc (ala MCOM).

2. HTML 3.1
HTML as it has been, plus stylesheets to control presentation.

3. SGML
WWW Browsers become SGML browsers, allowing providers to use the
DTD best suited to their documents: PDL (presentation display lang)?,
HTML, MDL (math display language)?, any other DTD, which can all be
mixed in a single document.

4. Multi-format browser
Mosaic, etc. become larger, able to read and display HTML, Web-PDF,
Web-TeX, CGM, SVF, VRML, etc.

5. Chimera-style multi-format browser
Single browser which uses separate rendering plug-in programs to
interpret different formats

6. Multi-browser (CCI, CORBA)
Several smaller browsers, one for each format, which can communicate
with each other.

Can we refine our discussion a bit by speaking in the same terms, and arguing
the relative merits of each of these possibilities?

Brandon Plewe
plewe@acsu.buffalo.edu