Comment by ktpsns
10 hours ago
With all respect - the opposite is true. The web succeeded because HTML and HTTP are easy standards easily writable by humans with text editors. HTML was writable by non-programmers.
10 hours ago
With all respect - the opposite is true. The web succeeded because HTML and HTTP are easy standards easily writable by humans with text editors. HTML was writable by non-programmers.
The low barrier to authoring was very important. No tools needed except notepad and a browser. Syntax easy to understand and write by hand.
But I don’t think the ambiguous html parsing made it easier. If anything it made it more difficult since you had to test in multiple browsers. Eg a table which was not properly closed would render in IE but not render in Netscape.
I don't think "parsed strictly" makes something hard; on the contrary, I think it's helpful to make something easy. Clear feedback, easy to test.
But then, I've always preferred strongly typed over stringly typed.
This imagines HTML as code and not markup.
The reason HTML and markdown are more widely adopted than latex is because the former are more forgiving.
I am thinking of it as markup. I stand by the point: I think "forgiving" is not a feature in parsing; it's a bug.
4 replies →
That's not obviously so. The adoption of JS wasn't particularly hindered by the fact that users have to match their brackets and generally avoid syntax errors.