A LEANER, MEANER MARKUP LANGUAGE

SGML is in its second decade of existence but if it weren't for its most famous application, HTML, then few outside specialist circles would have heard of it. SGML of course has far more applications than HTML on its own: it is a meta‐language for defining, identifying and using the structure and content of documents in general. It has also become far easier to implement in recent years with the latest generation of editors, but still the basic task of setting up Document Type Definitions can require expert help. Meanwhile, for all its limitations, HTML is still what makes text able to be displayed via the World Wide Web, so something many would find ideal is a way of combining the flexibility of one markup language with the Web suitability of the other.