On 10/21/2012 06:38 PM, Lee Passey wrote:
I believe that a text can be marked up using HTML in such a way that, 1. it can be viewed in any HTML user agent with an adequate, even if not perfect, presentation; 2. it can be combined with one of a number of external CSS files to create a presentation good enough to satisfy any individual reader; and 3. it can be programmatically transformed into any other non-HTML based format (e.g. PDF, RTF).
3. can only be achieved if you duct-tape sematic extensions onto HTML. Those semantic extension would be PG's properietary ones. Nobody else in the world would use them. You admit yourself that transformation comes cheap, so what makes you think that a proprietary markup used only at PG is better than an open markup used by the whole academic world like TEI? The learning curve toward your proprietary extension would be just as steep as toward TEI. Minus the extensive documentation and lots of use cases and an active discussion list stuffed with the world's best professionals, which TEI has and you have not.
But so far, no one has offered any evidence that I am wrong, so I guess I will go on being a "voice crying in the wilderness."
The lack of falsification doesn't confirm a hypothesis. Some evidence would confirm it. So how about showing us some?
Thankfully, this criticism does not apply to me, because the example I provided of McGuffy's reader is presented in an immaculate, pleasant, elegant and sensible way. It is inconceivable that anyone could not view that presentation as the epitome of fine markup.
For all the sensational work you did with it, you didn't even manage to spell "McGuffey" correctly. But I'm sure your markup is awesome! -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org