[ntp:questions] Re: Windows timekeeping - sudden degradation - why?

Steve Kostecke kostecke at ntp.isc.org
Sun Dec 18 04:23:19 UTC 2005


On 2005-12-17, David J Taylor <david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

> Well, if it doesn't work with the world's most popular Web browser, as
> far as I am concerned it needs fixing so that it does.

Providing detailed error information (i.e. more than just "Page error")
will help us address this issue.

> Why they have to invent yet another mark-up language as well also
> beats me. We have HTML thanks very much - that's what I use and I'm
> sticking with it for now.

(from: http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2004/03/19/in_defense_of_wiki_markup)

| Wiki markup solves a set of problems that are important for Wikis to
| solve:
|
| 1. Pages are editable solely in the web browser, not requiring any
| additional software to be installed or called up for editing.
|
| 2. The page in the text area gives visual clues as to what the
| finished page will look like: bullet-points look like bullet-points,
| and the various kinds of in-line emphasis look like the sort of thing
| we've been using in email for years.
|
| 3. The markup is simple enough that it can be described very quickly.
| The important parts of Confluences markup can be described succinctly
| in a side-bar on the edit page.
|
| 4. The Wiki doesn't have to worry about defending itself against the
| latest Cross-Site Scripting technique or whatever markup crashes
| Internet Explorer today.

<snip>

| Sure, you end up with something thats significantly less powerful than
| HTML. This is a feature. A wiki page isn't a place for complicated
| markup, it's for writing stuff down. The more power you put in the markup
| language, the more people are going to be wanking around with the
| precise arrangement of angle-brackets that will make their paragraphs
| step from left-to-right in pixel-perfect harmony in lieu of saying
| something.

> This Wiki implementation, on my first visit as a potential author, seems 
> foreign and unfriendly, although the basic idea is one I like.

Wikis all work in pretty much the same way, although the mark-up tends
to be implementation-specific.

-- 
Steve Kostecke <kostecke at ntp.isc.org>
NTP Public Services Project - http://ntp.isc.org/




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