Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: You've never owned the look and feel ...
Are you a normal user? - 99 out of 100 will take the default burger and be very happy with it,
Yep, I'm that 1 in 100 that goes to the local eatery and becomes a regular. I tip well, over time the wait staff learns my preferences and eventually the folks in the kitchen will stick their head out when my order comes through to say "Hi!".
Or I buy it at the farmer's market and cook it myself.
I don't settle for second rate approximations to "beef" and the blandest potatoes fried into oblivion when I'm eating out, except for the most dire of emergencies, why should I do so when I'm web browsing?
Especially since allowing me customization is so much easier since it's automated. I don't know if Cam used my code to do color schemes, but I know he asked for it, and I've made it freely available to anyone who cares to see how I did it.
So much of XML is being used not for any real need, but because we've lost the distinction between HTML as a content specification language and HTML as a display language. And don't give me that "CSS gives you a choice" horsepucky, I've run across many sites which are completely unusable without their own CSS enabled.
On the various syndication languages, we've already got a perfectly serviceable syntax for specifying paragraphs with links in them, even lists of such things. Leaving aside my rant on XML versus SGML (XML is the "the subset of SGML that Microsoft's developers could understand"), why are we abandoning HTML when subsets of it still describe the concepts we're using it for as well or better than the XML which is replacing it? The only reason I can see is because we've become so tied to it as a visual language that we've forgot that there are things like
Heck, as I struggle with automated systems to do much of my linking and cross-referencing for me, I've forgotten.
But I think with your food simile you've wonderfully described the situation: Those who do design for the easily amused masses with lots of shiny graphics and flashing neon and sound bite ads are generally trying to charge a premium for substandard content by convincing us that it's convenient. You nailed it.
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