[whatwg] Web Forms as data schema language

[Ian Hickson]

On Wed, 6 Jul 2005, Dimitri Glazkov wrote:
>
> On 7/6/05, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> 
> > It isn't a data schema language (although I suppose HTML has been 
> > abused for worst things).
> 
> Why not?

The same reason it isn't a spreadsheet language: making it one wasn't one 
of the goals of designing the language. :-)


> And what does abuse have anything to do with this?

HTML has traditionally and frequently been used for purposes other than 
its original purpose. For example, using it as a layout language, or using 
it for describing applications (although we are now turning HTML around so 
that this latter case is in fact appropriate).

HTML could be used for describing a schema; it just wasn't designed to do 
so, and thus would probably not be the best language to use for that.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'