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by dextorious 5302 days ago
"""XHTML was poised to offer much more than "correctedness". Reliable validation, custom DTDs, extensions, better interoperability. It just wasn't meant for the general web, where you have a massive number of non-technical authors."""

You just retold the whole of his Python 3 argument in terms of XHTML. P3 was also poised to offer more than "correctedness", and also "wasn't meant for the general real world where you have a massive number of different systems".

"""I don't think this comparison has any place in this discussion."""

Actually it's the perfect analogy.

XHTML -> add correctness, some new features, idealistic, unsuitable for the real world, didn't catch on.

Python 3 -> add correctness, some new features, idealistic, unsuitable for the real world, didn't catch on.

1 comments

"I don't think this comparison has any place in this discussion"

I agree. Comparing markup languages to programming languages is even worse than comparing js to assembly. But since we are on the topic... I am not quite sure i undestand what " xhtml is unsuitable for the real world" means. Xhtml is a contract between a content author and a browser. Why do we call the browser's failure to implement the contract "unsuitable for the real world"?