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From: Bill Kearney [mailto:wkearney99@h...] >Had DTDs been better documented and more readable they'd have doubtless gotten >more use. Maybe not. "SGML: An Author's Guide"; Bryan, Martin; Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1988; ISBN 0 201 175355. About $31.95 at the time. Perhaps you mean, "freely" available like "view source". DTDs aren't hard to learn. They just aren't as easy as ripping a piece of code via view source, pasting it into PFE, saving, then opening the file in a free browser. Free. That was the engine that drove the emergence. >It seems like an awful lot of complaining about the readability of things >should be better placed on the crappy condition of the tools and documentation. Quality costs more. The rose-colored glasses view of the grass roots emergence of the web avoids looking at where the costs were paid and that the quality of the grass roots web was pretty low. Basic gray; yeachhh. Did it spread fast? Yes. So has crystal methedrine and for exactly the same reasons. It isn't the envelope that counts; it is the content. HTML put a lot of content on the street free to the user. Quality varies by source just as it does with the code one cobbles. Crappy tools and documentation? Well, we made those ourselves, yes? But those days are past. One can buy good tools and never have to look at a DTD. Is that progress? Yes. For some it is. len
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