PerlGuy(Tom)'s bio: "... I could never get any real programmers to write the programs I thought were needed. I would not accept that what I wanted was really "impossible". Often they didn't really seem to comprehend what I was trying to say, or didn't listen long enough to really get it. ... I still feel frustrated that they just, either didn't quite understand, or just couldn't quite get it right. ..."

A case in point. I was an early advocate of the "semantic web" utilizing "xml", which was originally an HTML element which I envisioned would implement a whole new, incredible social era. the possibilities it would open up were amazing and mind blowing and powerful. It would completely transform the Web and change the way people used it.

What happened was, the "browser wars" made implementing XML as an HTML element impossible. There was no consistency. It appeared nobody understood what this new HTML tag was for or how to implement it. Do we show the XML content? Make it invisible? Some browsers displayed it and some made it invisible, which made designing a web-page utilizing "xml data islands" impossible. XML as an HTML element never got off the ground and was eventually deprecated. Instead, XML, or the general idea, morphed into a kind of programming language. Still useful, but rather far from the original vision.

Tom