Re: Correction Re: Foreseeing the Web, was Re: CONFESSIONS OF A CHEERFULLIBERTARIAN By David Brin

From: Emlyn (emlyn@one.net.au)
Date: Thu Dec 07 2000 - 03:21:34 MST


> I've been reading the ideas of Tim Berners-Lee, the man who can rightly be
> said to have invented the web. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) he
> founded is now promoting XML as a lingua franca for the web. Lee sees
> XML as a way to promote automated web reading, so that web pages can
> present data in machine-readable XML which is automatically translated
> to nice looking HTML for humans. The result will be that both humans
> and their software agents can browse the web with ease. Lee calls this
> the "Semantic Web" and describes it as an important part of his initial
> vision of what the web could become.
>

I've read Berner-Lee saying that he never intended hand-coding of HTML, and
that the first web-related application was a primitive WYZIWYG html editor
that he built himself.

The goals of machine readability, etc, etc, of XML are laudable. How long do
you reckon they'll last in the face of big commercial interests & a zillion
(well, many million) users of various flavours, with their own ideas about
how they want to use this thing called the web?

Emlyn



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