Re: Re: DHTML browsers [was Accessibility]
Ian Bicking <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.cms.cms-forum.general |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
cms-list wrote: > On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 16:20:32 -0500, Austin, Darrel wrote > >>The more >>I work with XML (I'm pretty much a newbie to all of that) the more I >>see the disadvantage of storing content using the limited palet of >>HTML tags for structure. > > > I think content should always be stored as XML in the CMS and all published > sites. The application server can render and cache XML content as HTML for > delivery to the browser. There may be exceptions for legacy content or such a > huge volume that the only decently-performing solution requires pre-rendering > in this format. There are many factors leading me to this conclusion but I am > interested in any arguments against such an architecture. HTML is a general presentational markup. If you support HTML, you support the web. That unlikely to be true with a custom XML markup -- instead you likely have an up-front schema designed based on people's imaginations and abstract feedback. This leaves authors in the lurch -- the process of updating the schema is burdensome, and they are generally not given the tools to fully express themselves. HTML is restrictive too, but there's a wealth of knowledge -- in the form of experience, writing, and tools like WYSIWYGs -- about how to use HTML to express what you want, or attain your desired effect. And it is certain to be a richer language than any custom solution. In many cases, the underlying data is strongly structured, and in this case XML is called for. A good example would be an ecommerce site -- it's not reasonable to express product availability or price in a free-form manner. But even in these cases, an HTML escape is often very desireable -- i.e., embedding HTML fragments in XML. A good example of this is RSS -- the format is well structured, and to great effect, but portions (the newsitem description) are relatively free-form, even as they are embedded in that structure. In many cases, I think we err too much on the side of structure. E.g., does the product image have to be part of the structure? I think it would usually be better to leave the entire description as a single hunk of free-form HTML, and create better tools so that you could simultaneously maintain a thumbnail display, detailed specs, etc. -- Ian Bicking / [email protected] / http://blog.ianbicking.org