---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 20:01:42 -0400
From: Albert Henderson <NobleStation@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: Re: Cost per title... (Chris Brown-Syed)

on 25 Oct 2000 Chris Brown-Syed PhD <ad6509@WAYNE.EDU> wrote:

> Albert Henderson wrote:
> >
> > The nonsense comes in the assumption that you will
> > have software that reads the copies.
>
> As long as people stay wedded to proprietary s/w, I agree.
>
> However, that's why it's a good thing Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML - it's
> plain ASCII text and is a true "cross-platform" tool. Its older cousin,
> SGML, has been around in the printing trade for at least two decades.

As I understand Tim Beners-Lee, he would be the first
to point out that this technology is in its infancy,
primitive, and far from perfect. I don't recall him
addressing the archival needs of the academy. My
experience with HTML is that the print must be
compared with the source-text to identify common
output problems such as dropped lines and garbles.

For my money, I would much rather have a nicely
bound book, reliably produced with folios on both
sides of the page and citable, than the mess
produced by HTML. If one counts the time spent
producing this inferior product, it is not
cheaper than print.

Albert Henderson
Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000
<70244.1532@compuserve.com>