On Mar 2, 2007, at 8:32 AM, Len Bullard wrote:

> 1.  The "NO DTD" crew lost.  There was too much experience with  
> DTDless
> systems at the time to let that happen.   The optional DTD crew won  
> because
> we had plenty of experience with that.

One side of that was that people found DTD's to be useful only at  
certain points in the process... during the production process a  
document is not always/seldom 'valid'. Market forces made them  
optional ;-)

> 2.  The cost of an SGML parser had already gone to zero by the time  
> the SGML
> ERB was formed.

I think that there were actually few, if any 'true' SGML parsers. The  
reality was that a significant number of SGML *subset* parsers  
existing that shared a fairly common set of features.

> Things improved as they will in a technology that is heavily used  
> and more
> people get a voice.  Speeches that justify the mistakes or the  
> triumphs at
> the expense of the pioneers don't help.

Very true, though it is useful to see everyone's perspectives on the  
battle for supremacy.