On Tue, 9 Mar 1993 15:06:51 CST <[log in to unmask]> said:
>Standards should
>emerge bottom-up from experience with systems that actually do
>something, rather than being invented and imposed top down, IMHO.
 
I agree.  SGML did emerge from experience with existing markup systems
-- systems like TeX, troff, runoff, Script, etc.  The experience was,
however, that by providing a programming language (and *what* a
programming language!) TeX defined itself very clearly as a language for
getting black marks onto white paper at the correct locations.  Those
who want to do things with text other than print it out onto paper need
something not only device-independent but application-independent.  TeX,
despite its manifold virtues (and *despite* its programming language, I
am an admirer of TeX), is not that something.
 
C. M. Sperberg-McQueen