HTML Is Not Enough
HTML is the most successful programming language ever
created, so why move on to something else?
Problems with HTML
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For Presentation Only
HTML is a presentation language intended to specify how
a page will appear when displayed in a browser. HTML tags
allow you to identify text blocks as headings,
paragraphs, list items, etc., but not by other logical
types such as price, dates, or location
Even in terms of presenting information HTML is very
limited, in that much of its content is in an aggregate
form which cannot be analyzed, searched, manipulated,
or edited. For example, consider the presentation of
mathematical equations with integrals, matrices, and
the like. In HTML this is usually presented as a GIF or
PostScript file, and while it looks pretty, you cannot
*do* anything with it -- you can't locate common
sub-expressions, substitute one expression for another,
or feed the GIF file into a symbolic mathematical
analyzer.
Or consider a 3D graphic image: in HTML this is either
presented as a static picture, or as a link to a
special purpose program that allows only those
manipulations explicitly enabled by the programmer.
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Flexible Syntax
HTML syntax is not strict, making it difficult to
develop dynamic page designs controlled by programming
languages such as JavaScript. In addition, its loose
syntax invites varying interpretation by different
browsers.
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No New Tags
You cannot add new tags to HTML. The set of tags
available is fixed and cannot be extended.
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Dumb Searches
Because HTML is not "aware" of what a text block is,
other than how it is to be presented, searches of HTML
documents usually must be string searches, thus, the term
"Penguin" could refer to a bird, a hockey team, or a
publishing firm. Searching for text strings alone creates
huge numbers of false matches.
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High Bandwidth Needs
Since HTML cannot effectively process, edit, or
manipulate information, except through special purpose
scripts, interactions with data bases on servers require
extensive back-and-forth communication between client and
server.
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Limited International Capabilities
Lack of full and consistent Unicode support limits the
ability of HTML to support different character sets for
the worlds languages.
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