Nicola Ken Barozzi wrote: NKB> Ross Gardler wrote: NKB> ... >> My point is, *no* (usable) intermediate format will be so expressive >> that it can accomodate all users. >> >> On the XHTML side of things, the following text from the XHTML working >> draft convinces me that XHTML should be the intermediate format: >> >> "The XHTML family is designed with general user agent interoperability >> in mind. Through a new user agent and document profiling mechanism, >> servers, proxies, and user agents will be able to perform best effort >> content transformation. Ultimately, it will be possible to develop >> XHTML-conforming content that is usable by any XHTML-conforming user >> agent." >> >> If I am going to lose some semantic information I want to be sure that >> the language I am using is so generic that I don;t lose any >> presentational information regardless of the media type. That is what >> XHTML is designed for. >> >> Am I making any sense?
NKB> Well said, we should put this part up on the site to explain why we use NKB> xhtml, it's exactly the point :-) Has this happended yet? I totally agree that this and some other pieces from Ross's mail should become part of the documentation as he makes a very convincing case for the user of XHML while at the same time explaining why the central document format does not have to have the semantic expressiveness of docbook. Reading this mail I - for the first time - realized that the decision in no way means that "Forrest is not about semantic markup" but that it is about "not needing semantic markup in the central document format" while still supporting it in source documents. I guess the point would become even more obvious if the central document format was just that and not also an option for writers to create their documents in. (Not saying that it shouldn't!). Ferdinand
