Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:

> wmperry@aventail.com (William M. Perry) writes:
> 
> > Emacs/W3 is probably going to die very soon, due to lack of time and
> > interest on my part.
> 
> Arrgghh!  It has just gotten useful.  The way w3 displays text/html
> (after turning off all features) in Gnus means that it almost doesn't
> bother me anymore.  I also use it for following links in Gnus articles.

I agree that the integration with Gnus kicks ass, but there is no way that
I am going to bother implementing some of the stupid shit coming out of the 
W3C (CSS2 + CSS3).

I think a few things need to happen:

1) URL loading gets completely separated.  This is mostly done.  It could
   do with more of a rewrite to be even more asynch though.
2) XML parser as a c-level plugin or using the current external program +
   xml.el that I have attached.
3) A semi-minimal CSS2 implementation that would be enough to render simple 
   XML documents and tables correctly.
4) Perhaps use DSSSL in light of the stupid microsoft patent claiming to
   cover CSS.
5) More people than me and Thierry doing substantial work.

The current HTML parser and display engine could then suffer from bitrot
and not many people would care.

Between work, family, and trying to have more of a life, I just don't have
the time to devote to Emacs/W3 any more.  I'm going to talk to hrvoje,
steve, et al about some of this breakout and work while I am in japan.
I'll likely draft something that goes out to w3-beta and w3-dev as a plea
for help on the plan outlined above on the plane ride over.

If only I could convince Aventail to pay me to write elisp instead of
(shudder) C/C++.[1]

> Netscape is still used as the "stand-alone" browser, for reading
> /. and comics.

More sites tend more and more to be unusable without javascript and other
stupid shit.  Truly depressing.  I avoid the web like the plague it has
become. :)

-Bill P.

[1] I did at one point have a pretty kick-ass Emacs interface to our server
config file that we actually sent to some customers that wanted a TTY
version of the config tool. :)