On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 7:12 AM, Benoit Jacob <jacob.benoi...@gmail.com>wrote:
> How many specific domains will want to have their own domain-specific > markup language next? Chemistry? Biology? Electronics? Music? Flow charts? > Calligraphy? > This is a good question to ask, but I think it would help if there are specific vocabularies we can use as examples. I think we can safely say that mathematics is a more compelling domain for Web content than all those other domain. For years we've had a MathML WG in the W3C and as far as I know, none of those other domains have ever wanted a WG at the W3C --- at least, they haven't had one. Likewise we've had and still have a lot of people pushing for browser support for math, and I haven't ever noticed anyone pushing for browser support for those other domains. I think you can also look at Wikipedia and see a lot of use of math, but relatively little use of content in those other domains. Probably because math is a much more general tool than those other domains. Another thing to consider is how amenable to automatic layout/presentation a particular XML vocabulary is. I know good automatic music layout is very difficult. For flow-charts, and I suspect chemistry, it is too. For biology I don't even know what the browser would do. If there's no known good automatic layout algorithm then obviously browser rendering of content doesn't make much sense. One domain you didn't list where I *have* seen pressure for built-in browser support is maps. Some people want to extend SVG with features to support maps, so a browser can just render a map without specialized Web app support. I don't think that is a good idea because good map layout algorithms are really difficult (e.g. placing labels). Also, mapping applications invariably have a lot of functionality that wouldn't make sense to add to the browser --- direction finding, for example --- so it's hard to imagine users wanting to use maps outside of the context of some Web application. There's almost no benefit to anyone supporting maps outside the context of a mapping Web application. Rob -- q“qIqfq qyqoquq qlqoqvqeq qtqhqoqsqeq qwqhqoq qlqoqvqeq qyqoquq,q qwqhqaqtq qcqrqeqdqiqtq qiqsq qtqhqaqtq qtqoq qyqoquq?q qEqvqeqnq qsqiqnqnqeqrqsq qlqoqvqeq qtqhqoqsqeq qwqhqoq qlqoqvqeq qtqhqeqmq.q qAqnqdq qiqfq qyqoquq qdqoq qgqoqoqdq qtqoq qtqhqoqsqeq qwqhqoq qaqrqeq qgqoqoqdq qtqoq qyqoquq,q qwqhqaqtq qcqrqeqdqiqtq qiqsq qtqhqaqtq qtqoq qyqoquq?q qEqvqeqnq qsqiqnqnqeqrqsq qdqoq qtqhqaqtq.q" _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
