kragen-history-of-markup - Revision history

Tantek at 01:36, 19 July 2007

2007-07-19T01:36:09Z

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	However, it's much more of a brief history of markup in general from one person's perspective from two years ago rather than a history of microformats, and thus I've moved it to [[kragen-history-of-markup]].		However, it's much more of a brief history of markup in general from one person's perspective from two years ago rather than a history of microformats, and thus I've moved it to [[kragen-history-of-markup]].

	Kragen has placed his work in the ~~[[Category:public_domain_license\|~~public domain]] and thus the contents of this page may be re-used for other materials.		Kragen has [http://microformats.org/wiki/Category:public_domain_license placed his work in the public domain] and thus the contents of this page may be re-used for other materials.

	[[User:Tantek\|Tantek]] 09:28, 18 Jul 2007 (PDT)		[[User:Tantek\|Tantek]] 09:28, 18 Jul 2007 (PDT)

Tantek: noted why the page was moved

2007-07-18T16:28:22Z

noted why the page was moved

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	'''~~THIS~~ page has been obsoleted by [[introduction]].'''		'''This page has been obsoleted by [[introduction]].'''

	= Background =		= Background =

	This page was created and written by [[User:Kragen\|Kragen Sitaker]] as [[intro]] in 2005 as an attempt at an introduction to microformats. Thus references to "I" and "my" refer to Kragen.		This page was created and written by [[User:Kragen\|Kragen Sitaker]] as [[intro]] in 2005 as an attempt at an introduction to microformats. Thus references to "I" and "my" refer to Kragen.

			However, it's much more of a brief history of markup in general from one person's perspective from two years ago rather than a history of microformats, and thus I've moved it to [[kragen-history-of-markup]].

			Kragen has placed his work in the [[Category:public_domain_license\|public domain]] and thus the contents of this page may be re-used for other materials.

			[[User:Tantek\|Tantek]] 09:28, 18 Jul 2007 (PDT)

	= SGML =		= SGML =

Tantek: noted creationg, authorship

2007-07-18T16:22:05Z

noted creationg, authorship

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	'''THIS page ~~appears to be obsoluted~~ by [[introduction]].'''		'''THIS page has been obsoleted by [[introduction]].'''

	''This page ~~is still skeletal~~. ~~Perhaps some of it should move~~ to a "~~history~~" or "~~background~~" ~~page?''~~		= Background =

			This page was created and written by [[User:Kragen\|Kragen Sitaker]] as [[intro]] in 2005 as an attempt at an introduction to microformats. Thus references to "I" and "my" refer to Kragen.

	= SGML =		= SGML =

RyanKing at 06:56, 25 November 2005

2005-11-25T06:56:33Z

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			'''THIS page appears to be obsoluted by [[introduction]].'''

	''This page is still skeletal. Perhaps some of it should move to a "history" or "background" page?''		''This page is still skeletal. Perhaps some of it should move to a "history" or "background" page?''

Tantek: /* Microformats */

2005-07-20T01:39:39Z

Microformats

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	Thus was born the microformat: a way to add semantics to HTML documents without breaking their validation.		Thus was born the microformat: a way to add semantics to HTML documents without breaking their validation.

	At ETCon 2004, Tantek Çelik and Kevin Marks gave [http://tantek.com/presentations/2004etech/realworldsemanticspres.html a talk entitled "real world semantics"] --- before they invented the "microformats" term, but the presentation covers [[xoxo\|XOXO]], XFN, [http://geourl.org/ GeoURL], blogchalking, [[rellicense\|CC rel="license"]], VoteLinks. Subsequently [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/etech/index.cgi?RealWorldSemantics they held a BoF session] which apparently had more than the three participants listed. The next week, they presented a lightning-talk version of the same talk at ConCon 2004. In 2005, Tantek gave [http://tantek.com/presentations/2005/03/elementsofxhtml/ an SXSW talk entitled "The elements of meaningful XHTML"].		At ETCon 2004, Tantek Çelik and Kevin Marks gave [http://tantek.com/presentations/2004etech/realworldsemanticspres.html a talk entitled "real world semantics"] --- before they invented the "microformats" term (Kragen, this is incorrect, note that the presentation you linked to uses the term microformats in it -- [http://tantek.com/log/ Tantek]), but the presentation covers [[xoxo\|XOXO]], XFN, [http://geourl.org/ GeoURL], blogchalking, [[rellicense\|CC rel="license"]], VoteLinks. Subsequently [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/etech/index.cgi?RealWorldSemantics they held a BoF session] which apparently had more than the three participants listed. The next week, they presented a lightning-talk version of the same talk at ConCon 2004. In 2005, Tantek gave [http://tantek.com/presentations/2005/03/elementsofxhtml/ an SXSW talk entitled "The elements of meaningful XHTML"].

69.238.122.10: /* The battle for the soul of the Web */

2005-07-19T23:38:06Z

The battle for the soul of the Web

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	Once standards-supporting browsers were available, groups like the [http://www.webstandards.org/upgrade/ WaSP, or Web Standards Project (founded in 1998)] pressured readers to upgrade their browsers, so that web sites could use semantic markup rather than presentational markup without looking bad.		Once standards-supporting browsers were available, groups like the [http://www.webstandards.org/upgrade/ WaSP, or Web Standards Project (founded in 1998)] pressured readers to upgrade their browsers, so that web sites could use semantic markup rather than presentational markup without looking bad.
	~~''web standards project''~~

	= Microformats =		= Microformats =

69.238.122.10: /* The battle for the soul of the Web */

2005-07-19T23:37:50Z

The battle for the soul of the Web

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	The presentational-markup people did whatever worked to get their documents to look right in their browser of choice, right down to the last pixel. They achieved stunning visual effects --- sometimes beautiful, sometimes hideous. Their documents inevitably used browser-specific tags to achieve specific visual effects, looked wrong if the user's browser window was an unexpectedly small size ("Best viewed at 800x600 or better!"), and often looked wrong in subsequent releases of the same browser.		The presentational-markup people did whatever worked to get their documents to look right in their browser of choice, right down to the last pixel. They achieved stunning visual effects --- sometimes beautiful, sometimes hideous. Their documents inevitably used browser-specific tags to achieve specific visual effects, looked wrong if the user's browser window was an unexpectedly small size ("Best viewed at 800x600 or better!"), and often looked wrong in subsequent releases of the same browser.

	The semantic-markup folks pointed out that semantic markup didn't require a version for each browser, was usually more readable, shrank page downloads, supported "graceful degradation" for devices such as Braille terminals, cellphone browsers, and text-to-speech systems. They advocated validating HTML documents against SGML DTDs, using on-line services such as [http://validator.w3.org/ the W3C validator] and its predecessor at Webtechs. ~~Also, they pointed out that the mothers of the presentational-markup folks dressed them funny.~~		The semantic-markup folks pointed out that semantic markup didn't require a version for each browser, was usually more readable, shrank page downloads, supported "graceful degradation" for devices such as Braille terminals, cellphone browsers, and text-to-speech systems. They advocated validating HTML documents against SGML DTDs, using on-line services such as [http://validator.w3.org/ the W3C validator] and its predecessor at Webtechs.

	The presentational-markup people responded that the web pages maintained by the semantic-markup folks looked the same way in every browser, but that just meant they looked ~~like dog poo~~ in every browser, and that wasn't what the clients of the presentational-markup people were asking for~~. Besides, the semantic-markup folks smelled bad and used the wrong brand of toothpaste~~.		The presentational-markup people responded that the web pages maintained by the semantic-markup folks looked the same way in every browser, but that just meant they looked boring in every browser, and that wasn't what the clients of the presentational-markup people were asking for.

	The "browser wars" were a large contributor to this problem. Netscape, and later Microsoft, worked as hard as they could to establish ways in which their browser was better than other available browsers, and generally this took the form of new HTML tags to produce "cool" visual effects, such as BLINK, MARQUEE, LAYER, FONT, and IFRAME. Consequently the presentational-markup people continued to have better-looking web pages, although they cost considerably more to maintain.		The "browser wars" were a large contributor to this problem. Netscape, and later Microsoft, worked as hard as they could to establish ways in which their browser was better than other available browsers, and generally this took the form of new HTML tags to produce "cool" visual effects, such as BLINK, MARQUEE, LAYER, FONT, and IFRAME. Consequently the presentational-markup people continued to have better-looking web pages, although they cost considerably more to maintain.

	During this time, Microsoft helped in the founding of the W3C and provided a substantial part of the organization's funding, in order to be able to "standardize" their extensions to HTML while criticizing Netscape's extensions as "nonstandard," "incompatible," and "proprietary." Netscape joined in supporting the organization that would ultimately seal its doom.

	In 1996, the W3C promulgated a stylesheet language for specifying visual presentation of XML and HTML documents: [http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1 CSS, level 1]. (Apparently they didn't think existing SGML stylesheet languages such as DSSSL were good enough.) In 1998, they published the first release of another stylesheet language, XSL. Also in 1998 (''???''), Netscape released their current browser as [http://www.fsf.org/ free software], persuaded by Eric Raymond's arguments that certain "open" development processes produced better software. (Raymond immediately founded the [http://www.osi.org/ Open Source Initiative] to promulgate the new term "open source" as a "marketing program" for free software, on the basis of producing better software, rather than protecting users' freedoms.)		In 1996, the W3C promulgated a stylesheet language for specifying visual presentation of XML and HTML documents: [http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1 CSS, level 1]. (Apparently they didn't think existing SGML stylesheet languages such as DSSSL were good enough.) In 1998, they published the first release of another stylesheet language, XSL. Also in 1998 (''???''), Netscape released their current browser as [http://www.fsf.org/ free software], persuaded by Eric Raymond's arguments that certain "open" development processes produced better software. (Raymond immediately founded the [http://www.osi.org/ Open Source Initiative] to promulgate the new term "open source" as a "marketing program" for free software, on the basis of producing better software, rather than protecting users' freedoms.)

Kragen: /* XML */

2005-07-15T23:21:44Z

XML

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	= XML =		= XML =

	~~An effort known as WebSGML began (''when?'')~~ in order to produce a simplified subset of SGML that would allow web-page authors to invent their own sets of tags, which ~~would then be rendered in~~ web browsers according to stylesheets. In 1998, this effort resulted in [http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210 XML 1.0]. XML was not adopted as a format for web pages because web browsers didn't support either XML or any stylesheet languages at the time.		[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-sgml-wg/1996Aug/0002.html The WC established a "W3C SGML Working Group"] in 1996 in order to produce a simplified subset of SGML that would allow web-page authors to invent their own sets of tags, which web browsers would render according to stylesheets. In 1998, this effort resulted in [http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210 XML 1.0]. XML was not adopted as a format for web pages because web browsers didn't support either XML or any stylesheet languages at the time.

	However, XML proved very popular among users of SGML, and indeed extended SGML-like applications into areas where SGML had previously been rejected as too complex. XML's uncountable applications today include data structure serialization (in XML-RPC and SOAP), feed syndication (as Atom and RSS), printer description files, MIME-type descriptions, technical documentation, IM buddy lists, web-browser bookmarks files, GUI descriptions (in XUL, Glade, and XAML), metadata for software components (for example, in Chandler), system configuration data (in GConf and MacOS property lists), software build instructions (in Ant and CodeWarrior), spreadsheets (in Gnumeric and OpenOffice).		However, XML proved very popular among users of SGML, and indeed extended SGML-like applications into areas where SGML had previously been rejected as too complex. XML's uncountable applications today include data structure serialization (in XML-RPC and SOAP), feed syndication (as Atom and RSS), printer description files, MIME-type descriptions, technical documentation, IM buddy lists, web-browser bookmarks files, GUI descriptions (in XUL, Glade, and XAML), metadata for software components (for example, in Chandler), system configuration data (in GConf and MacOS property lists), software build instructions (in Ant and CodeWarrior), spreadsheets (in Gnumeric and OpenOffice).

Kragen: /* Microformats */

2005-07-15T23:19:28Z

Microformats

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	= Microformats =		= Microformats =

			Thus was born the microformat: a way to add semantics to HTML documents without breaking their validation.

	At ETCon 2004, Tantek Çelik and Kevin Marks gave [http://tantek.com/presentations/2004etech/realworldsemanticspres.html a talk entitled "real world semantics"] --- before they invented the "microformats" term, but the presentation covers [[xoxo\|XOXO]], XFN, [http://geourl.org/ GeoURL], blogchalking, [[rellicense\|CC rel="license"]], VoteLinks. Subsequently [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/etech/index.cgi?RealWorldSemantics they held a BoF session] which apparently had more than the three participants listed. The next week, they presented a lightning-talk version of the same talk at ConCon 2004. In 2005, Tantek gave [http://tantek.com/presentations/2005/03/elementsofxhtml/ an SXSW talk entitled "The elements of meaningful XHTML"].		At ETCon 2004, Tantek Çelik and Kevin Marks gave [http://tantek.com/presentations/2004etech/realworldsemanticspres.html a talk entitled "real world semantics"] --- before they invented the "microformats" term, but the presentation covers [[xoxo\|XOXO]], XFN, [http://geourl.org/ GeoURL], blogchalking, [[rellicense\|CC rel="license"]], VoteLinks. Subsequently [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/etech/index.cgi?RealWorldSemantics they held a BoF session] which apparently had more than the three participants listed. The next week, they presented a lightning-talk version of the same talk at ConCon 2004. In 2005, Tantek gave [http://tantek.com/presentations/2005/03/elementsofxhtml/ an SXSW talk entitled "The elements of meaningful XHTML"].

Kragen: /* XML */

2005-07-15T23:12:19Z

XML

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:12, 15 July 2005
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	= XML =		= XML =

	An effort known as WebSGML began (''when?'') in order to produce a simplified subset of SGML that would allow web-page authors to invent their own sets of tags, which would then be rendered in web browsers according to stylesheets. In ~~1996~~, this effort resulted in [http://www.w3.org/TR/~~XML~~ XML 1.0] ~~(''check that link'')~~. XML was not adopted as a format for web pages because web browsers didn't support either XML or any stylesheet languages at the time.		An effort known as WebSGML began (''when?'') in order to produce a simplified subset of SGML that would allow web-page authors to invent their own sets of tags, which would then be rendered in web browsers according to stylesheets. In 1998, this effort resulted in [http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210 XML 1.0]. XML was not adopted as a format for web pages because web browsers didn't support either XML or any stylesheet languages at the time.

	However, XML proved very popular among users of SGML, and indeed extended SGML-like applications into areas where SGML had previously been rejected as too complex. XML's uncountable applications today include data structure serialization (in XML-RPC and SOAP), feed syndication (as Atom and RSS), printer description files, MIME-type descriptions, technical documentation, IM buddy lists, web-browser bookmarks files, GUI descriptions (in XUL, Glade, and XAML), metadata for software components (for example, in Chandler), system configuration data (in GConf and MacOS property lists), software build instructions (in Ant and CodeWarrior), spreadsheets (in Gnumeric and OpenOffice).		However, XML proved very popular among users of SGML, and indeed extended SGML-like applications into areas where SGML had previously been rejected as too complex. XML's uncountable applications today include data structure serialization (in XML-RPC and SOAP), feed syndication (as Atom and RSS), printer description files, MIME-type descriptions, technical documentation, IM buddy lists, web-browser bookmarks files, GUI descriptions (in XUL, Glade, and XAML), metadata for software components (for example, in Chandler), system configuration data (in GConf and MacOS property lists), software build instructions (in Ant and CodeWarrior), spreadsheets (in Gnumeric and OpenOffice).