Discuss: A Brief History of Markup
by Jeremy Keith
- Editorial Comments
2 Sir
That’s not quite right, hiredgun. When speaking of a Knight of the British Empire, ‘Sir’ should be used only with a given name or full name e.g. Sir Ben Kinglsey, or Sir Ben, but never Sir Kingsley.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir#Formal_styling
posted at 09:17 am on May 4, 2010 by Jeremy Keith
4 Kindle
Very much looking forward to the book, although I only see a paperback option on the site. Any thoughts on a Kindle version?
posted at 10:57 am on May 4, 2010 by Stuart Memo
5 "HTML1"
Actually, there was an “HTML1”, just not a formal standards spec. HTML1 was generally held to be the original standard that Sir Tim supported (I can’t remember if there was an official document or not, or just the libwww code). This is similar to the oft-referenced but never-written DOM level 0.
posted at 01:47 pm on May 4, 2010 by cwilso
6 That's exactly the problem..
“It’s no different with HTML5. There won’t be a single point in time at which we can declare that the language is ready to use. Instead, we can start using parts of the specification as web browsers support those features.”
That’s exactly the problem. The failure of browsers to implement CSS 2.1 in a reasonable amount of time has been the bane of my existence as a web developer (cough IE cough).
To put it simply, I’m preemptively cursing Microsoft for the acts of incompetence that they have yet to commit.
For that one reason alone, don’t consider me a fan of HTML5.
posted at 02:16 pm on May 4, 2010 by Stargazer
7 "HTML1"
Chris, it’s true: there was a document called “HTML Tags” which is what Sir Tim supported in WorldWideWeb (aka Enquire) but as you say, there was a never an official recommendation called HTML 1.
I don’t even think there’s a URL for the HTML Tags document, although I’d love to be proven wrong on that. Has anybody seen it?
Here’s an email from 1991 where Tim Berners-Lee is responding to Dan Connolly’s progress on X11 and I believe this is the first mention of HTML Tags but alas, the URL on CERN that’s referenced is now 404:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-talk/1991SepOct/0003.html
posted at 02:24 pm on May 4, 2010 by Jeremy Keith
8 Re: That's exactly the problem..
Stargazer, I think you misunderstand how standards bodies and browsers work. They don’t produce a fully-written spec that’s then handed over to browsers. Neither do browsers wait until a specification is finished before implementing parts of it.
So, to talk about CSS2.1 or HTML5 or any other specification as a monolithic thing that can’t be used until every single piece of the spec is implemented in all browsers …well, that’s not really how standards (or browsers) work. Surely you’d rather see some incremental implementation in all browsers rather than despair that one browser hasn’t implemented everything?
posted at 02:44 pm on May 4, 2010 by Jeremy Keith
9 "HTML Tags" Document URL
Hi Jeremy,
The “HTML Tags” document lives on at:
http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/Tags.html
posted at 03:05 pm on May 4, 2010 by phil.interact
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1 Sir
Delightful writing,
One little thing, ‘Sir’ title should be used only with family name or full name, Using this title with good name only will change it’s meaning and context.
posted at 08:42 am on May 4, 2010 by hiredgun