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Subject:Re: Re[2]: PDF vs HTML (Act II) From:Matt Ion <soundy -at- NEXTLEVEL -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 23 Apr 1996 09:20:55 -0800
On Tue, 23 Apr 1996 09:34:00 -0600, Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM wrote:
> Perhaps I misunderstood what Netscape told me - which was that you
> get to some fixed point of RAM and won't need more, despite the
> number of plug-ins you have. Plug-ins are definitely cheaper than
> running helpers.
>This might be true, but Netscape is demanding more than 8 MB of RAM (my
>current setting is 10MB, but the insufficient one was less than 8) for me
>right now. I haven't added many plug-ins since Shockwave, so I don't know if
>more RAM will ever be required after this point.
Kinda makes me glad I don't *need* to worry about how much RAM an app
or helper takes, how many system resources they don't have to eat up,
and so on. This is one area I cannot empathize in; having gone
straight to OS/2 when I jumped into the PC world, memory and system
resource limitations have never really affected me.
>The point about the Netscape vs MS and the extra "features" coming isn't
>about plug-ins, nor about how worried Netscape is or should be. It was and
>remains that the two browsers *right now* cannot read the same pages and be
>guaranteed to produce readable results, much less similar results. And
>there's been no indication that this trend will do anything other than
>accelerate as they try to outdo each other in the browser arena.
One thing's sure: Net$cape can't complain about M$ doing this, since
they're the ones that STARTED the whole proprietary-tags browser war in
the first place! :-)
>Speaking generally, I prefer Acrobat to HTML as a more robust and
>communications-freindly medium. It's just not possible today to create a
>well-organized and designed manual which reads that way in every HTML
>browser.
Well, it IS *possible*. Not many people will take that route though.
What makes things even more difficult is the plethora of HTML "design
tools" out now. A prime example is the HTML authoring tools in M$-Word
- naturally, Word will have support for Explorer-proprietary
extensions, and will generate pages that you KNOW will look good on
Explorer, but may not look right on anything else.
Your friend and mine,
Matt
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