On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 12:21:03PM -0800, Sean L. Palmer wrote:
Why has HTML been out for many many years, and yet programming languages still use plain ASCII text exclusively? Don't we have similar needs as other electronic document manipulators?
Because HTML was designed as a language for constructing hypertext documents. It's (moderately) good at that. It would be terrible for constructing programs (if you're not convinced, try reading HTML e-mail in a text-based mail reader sometime). This is not to say that we *shouldn't* take advantage of technology going beyond ASCII text for expressing programs, just that HTML would be entirely the wrong technology. -- Kirsten Chevalier * krc@cs.berkeley.edu * Often in error, never in doubt "The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth."--Camus http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~krc/