which is better / worse: DOM or PDF? I was until recently of the opinion that the DOM has led to more and more complex HTML and document layouts requiring demanding browsers to render the content and reflow the layout, and that on balance, this was a Bad Thing.
On the one hand, this DOM setup is crazy. Surely a more dynamic architecture would be better where decoders are downloaded on-demand as the user goes from site to site, coming across content types not yet seen. This of course raises security questions, as to the provenance of the decoder and less so of the content.
On the other, having come to the realization that the next logical step on the path to this scenario is WebASM, where the content and decoder are completely opaque to the user one can envision a world where there are a million different types of PDF, each with their own decoder, each trivially but crucially different. It's not a pretty thought.
On the one hand, this DOM setup is crazy. Surely a more dynamic architecture would be better where decoders are downloaded on-demand as the user goes from site to site, coming across content types not yet seen. This of course raises security questions, as to the provenance of the decoder and less so of the content.
On the other, having come to the realization that the next logical step on the path to this scenario is WebASM, where the content and decoder are completely opaque to the user one can envision a world where there are a million different types of PDF, each with their own decoder, each trivially but crucially different. It's not a pretty thought.