[Wikipedia-l] Re: Parsing

[Lars Aronsson]

Steve Callaway wrote:
> > > === Header 3 === etc.
> er. and H4 - H8? I can see why you want it. It's very idiosyncratic,
> nevertheless. HTML is //much// simpler. And the stuff you learn is

Frankly, when did you ever use H4 or even H8?  Having more than 3
levels of headings must be considered poor information structure.  It
might happen in technical reports and documentation (although more
by poor tradition than by good design), but hardly in wiki articles.
The people who designed H4-H8 into HTML should be prosecuted, but
they would probably be believed if they'd plead insanity.

Wiki markup is simplicity.  XML is simplicity when compared to SGML,
but it isn't radical enough for manual text editing.  The exact
details of wiki markup can be discussed, but essentially it is the
same plain text that we use in email.  At first I would have expected
*boldface* and _italics_, which is the email/Usenet tradition, but
'''boldface''' and ''italics'' is fine with me.

If the web browser HTML form textarea editor was a nice WYSIWYG
editor, that would have been a step forward.  But given the browsers
as they are, wiki markup is the optimal solution, if you ask me.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik
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