>A big difference is that the language itself doesn't allow styling (like CSS), the downside being you get less flexibility but the upside being it will render correctly on any display with any resolution.
HTML without styling will render correctly on any display with any resolution. The facts of the history of the web tell us that people want custom styling, though, and businesses want it even more, because marketing says so. Your widgets need styling for each device they're rendered on, in which case you're back to the exact original problem as HTML and CSS. All you've done is move the problem to someplace else.
Frankly, I don't see why this isn't a markdown extension, since that seems much better suited to solving your base problem and is WAY more readable than the mess you have currently (which only seems readable to someone versed in high-level programming, either functional or OO)
I have moved the problem of styling to the browsers, like NAVI in my case. The browser is the only part that understands the limitation of the device and knows how to best render each widget so it makes sense for it to handle all the styling instead of having styling intertwined with the data itself like HTML does. CSS doesnt solve the problem of mixed data and styling either, it just hides it better.
The lack of styling I do understand can make it feel as if your site lacks personality when all sites look kinda the same so I see your point here. I might later allow some minor themeing, like say allowing you to select a color scheme, with the understanding that this might be ignored by the user. I will have to think about this more. What you will never get to decide are things lika margins and paddings and things like that.
I don't think you can compare Markdown with ALFI like that exactly. Markdown will generate HTML in the end and it is the resulting HTML that you need to compare with because that is what the browsers understands. Also, Markdown only solves the trivial cases and that is why it can be kept simple and readable but how do you for instance create a three column layout in Markdown with an image in the middle column? I don't know, maybe there are extensions for that these days too.
It would be interesting to have a Markdown to ALFI generator, but I suspect that when you are used to reading ALFI code you might find it to be a bit overkill because even though I am a bit biased of course I do think ALFI is pretty readable.
Also, there is no intentional OOP or funcional aspects, I did not quite understand what you wanted to convey there.
> The facts of the history of the web tell us that people want custom styling, though, and businesses want it even more, because marketing says so.
Wait, what? Are we on different webs? The facts of the history of the web tell us that some of the most popular services for publishing are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium, etc - places that allow for very limited custom styling.
I think you misunderstand what OP is trying to do, and are criticizing them for not instead making a thing you already know.
I think it's very, very obvious that "custom styling" here is referring creator styling, not user styling, so I'm not sure that you're in a position to be criticising the person you're responding to for "misunderstanding".
If I read you right, you’re saying that I’m the one misunderstanding OP? It’s honestly not clear to me what the difference between “user” and “creator” would be in the context of this discussion. Could you elaborate?
Since a “creator” is also a user of the web, I guess you mean “user” as in someone who only consumes content? I’m confused by that since nothing in the discussion seems to be about user stylesheets.
I...am a bit confused as to whether you're actually reading the same conversation.
The project creator explicitly said that their creation cannot be styled, at all. It renders the exact same "standard" way on all devices. The retort was that the vast majority of people (with a clear callout to companies that would obviously like their own branding) do not want a web where every site looks the exact same, which is why CSS exists in the first place. You seem to have read/decided to turn this into a discussion about end-user customisation of sites (and, frankly, a thinly veiled rant about Facebook and Medium), when that first of all has nothing directly to do with what was being discussed and second of all would also be out of scope for this project because it had styling itself out of scope.
I’m very sorry, but I don’t understand where you’re coming from.
The original proposal seems to be this: You publish a document. The platform takes care of presenting it.
One criticism was: No, people want to control the styling of what they publish.
My counter argument is: There are many successful platforms that don’t allow people to style the content they publish, and people seem to be fine with that.
Again, assuming you’re talking about readers when you say “end-user”, I never even mentioned them.
> The original proposal seems to be this: You publish a document. The platform takes care of presenting it.
And with a language that explicitly does not allow styling, how exactly is "the platform" that takes care of presenting it going to render anything but a single, default style for all content without...reinventing styling?
> One criticism was: No, people want to control the styling of what they publish.
No, one criticism was rather obviously that people don't want to go on the web and see the exact same thing everywhere they navigate to, which is what you get when styling is not possible. However, you seem to be looking at the entire conversation through some strange lens.
> Again, assuming you’re talking about readers when you say “end-user”, I never even mentioned them.
The creators of a web service/platform wanting to be able to brand their creation and the users of that service simply going with their chosen brand's aesthetics when publishing content are two concepts that can simultaneously exist - in fact, can even be linked.
I am not sure how it has to be explained that people being okay with publishing content on Facebook, LinkedIn or Medium without much custom styling is the furthest thing from an indicator that people want Facebook, LinkedIn, Medium and every other website to look exactly the same.
I’m starting to feel silly for continuing this thread. I will just conclude with my best understanding of how we are talking past each other.
I think I understand that you are imagining a middleman to be “the platform” even in the context of NAVI/ALFI. I understood NAVI itself to be this platform; much like the Facebook app allows you to publish and browse Facebook content with very little variation in the styling of different content, so NAVI might allow you to browse and perhaps create ALFI content with little variation in styling. You are comparing all the content within Facebook and others to the content on the rest of the web, while I’m talking about how content within a platform doesn’t need to be visually distinct for the platform to be appealing to publishers and readers. You’re thinking of the web as the “platform”, Facebook etc as the “creators” on the platform, and you are grouping people who publish and read on Facebook as “end-users”. I’m thinking of Facebook as the platform, people who publish things on Facebook as creators, and people who read the things published as the end-users.
Sorry in advance if I’ve misrepresented what you’re saying, but this is the best I can do in explaining why we’re unable to understand one another.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Medium all have custom styling specific to that platform. The person you're arguing with has interpreted me exactly correctly, you're the one misinterpreting. Please don't engage in pointless flame wars based on poor reading comprehension.
The adjacent thread was not about how to interpret your comment.
It’s completely besides the point that these platforms have custom styling with regards to the web in general. The point is that people are publishing enormous amounts of content on these platforms despite not having the ability to control what that content styled like. Ergo, lack of styling is not a deal breaker for people to publish stuff on a platform.
HTML without styling will render correctly on any display with any resolution. The facts of the history of the web tell us that people want custom styling, though, and businesses want it even more, because marketing says so. Your widgets need styling for each device they're rendered on, in which case you're back to the exact original problem as HTML and CSS. All you've done is move the problem to someplace else.
Frankly, I don't see why this isn't a markdown extension, since that seems much better suited to solving your base problem and is WAY more readable than the mess you have currently (which only seems readable to someone versed in high-level programming, either functional or OO)