Dear Final Debug: How much of a future does HTML have? — Chester Mayhew, New York.
Final Debug Responds: Those of you who are furiously learning HTML may be disappointed to learn that the technology, as far as the experts are concerned, is over.
No, an asteroid is not going to hit the Web anytime soon; the millions of pages written in HTML will look fine on your browser for the foreseeable future. But if the highly World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the organization that acts as the Style Guide of the Web, has its way, HTML will no longer be the foundation of Web pages.
According to a document on HTML activity that was posted last month, the W3C has decided that the current version of HTML (version 4.0) will be the final one, except for bug fixes and other adjustments.
Rather than try to add more weight to a standard that many experts feel has been pulled in too many directions already or try to convert HTML to XML, the next-generation markup language supported by the newest browsers from Microsoft and Netscape, is moving more in the XML direction.
Does this mean that HTML is being tossed out the window? HTML codes will continue to exist. The W3C’s working group is exploring whether it makes sense to include XML inside HTML (storing metadata is a major concern) or to redesign HTML as a “suite of XML tag sets.” The document was sure to report that any such new tags will not be backward-compatible with what the W3C now labels “classic HTML”; as if the current markup language is an antique. Can legacy HTML be far behind?
Are your HTML skills worthless now? Hardly. But you should learn add XML to your skills, too. And Chester, get out of New York!
Weird Windows 98 contest answer
Last week’s question emerged from a Windows 98 installation anomaly. We asked: When we turn on the laptop that we just upgraded to Windows 98, instead of seeing a Windows 98 splash screen we are confronted with the old Windows 95 splash screen. When we turn off the machine we get a Windows 98 splash screen, but not on startup. What causes the problem and how do you fix it?
Daniel Heit was the first person who sent in a correct answer. He will receive a five-volume set of Dilbert books. Here’s Daniel’s winning response: “This sounds like the Windows setup not correctly replacing the ‘logo.sys’ file located on the boot drive of the machine running Windows. This is the file that is used to create the animated image you see at boot time. You can also change it to an image of your choice as long as the size of the file is 127 kb and it is a bitmap. By the way, to change the image displayed at boot to the Windows 98 version, copy the file from one of your other machines and replace the file on the affected machine.
We’ll have a new contest next week. If you have a question, write to Final Debug.
