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From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Subject: Re: Dynamics of HTML
Date: 2000/05/12
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* Fernando <spamers@must.die>
| I really think that sgml is way too complex for the rather
| simple goals it achieves.  

  After spending about 6 years with SGML, and in the process becoming
  an international authority, I came to conclude that the complexity
  of SGML qua language outweighs its benefits even when applied very
  carefully and intelligently, and that never happened because people
  didn't really understand what the simple goals were.  I considered
  this fairly tragic at the time I decided to quit SGML altogether.
  (And "improvements" like XML actually make things a lot worse.)

  As for SGML and Lisp: I wrote a complete SGML parser in Emacs Lisp
  in 1990 and had a lot of fun with it, but it was very hard for other
  people to use for some reason.  When I was encouraged to speak about
  it, one of the forefigures in the SGML world commented "that's great
  -- for you and the other two guys who know Lisp" and ridiculing Lisp
  solutions became de rigeur in the SGML community, even though people
  struggled with problems that various Lisp solutions had solved.

#:Erik