HTML as a language

[Curtis Clark]

At 09:44 AM 3/24/99 +1100, Mike Dallwitz wrote:
>You can find about 2000 plant descriptions in HTML at
>     http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/www/data.htm
>Some contain quotations from Shakespeare, for example, the description of
>the Cruciferae under 'Flowering plants - families'.

Enough! HTML is not content, it is format. If you were to look at a web
page and see <FONT FACE="Arial, Geneva" SIZE="4">, it would be evidence of
a busted page. When the page works properly, you never see the HTML; you
only see the format it describes (and even then, only by the interpretation
of your web browser).

Mike Dallwitz's statement makes about as much sense as saying "you can find
plant descriptions in Word Perfect"; a statement that also makes sense, but
that also ignores that the description is the content.

All this relates back to the Latin thread. HTML is a language for
specifying page format. Botanical Latin is a language for describing
plants. The two could coexist quite nicely on a web page containing a plant
description, each doing the job it was designed to do. Arguably, neither is
perfect for its intended use, but both are serviceable.


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Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department             Voice: (909) 869-4062
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