Re: A Compromise to the Versioning Debate

I've been looking for someone to get near this idea.

Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>
> The web is also not solely for skillful web developers, but also for 
> teachers who quickly want to set up some coursework pages for 
> instance. They might want to edit HTML by hand, but you can't expect 
> them to fully comprehend what they're doing up to the details of 
> setting up the right MIME types and dealing with character encoding 
> issues. That's just silly. (Those last points probably apply to 
> "skillful" web developers as well as quite often they have some 
> encoding issue although I suspect that problem might be less visible 
> now since blogging tools have mostly fixed their issues with those.)
>
>
I wondered suddenly, after reading X number of msgs. that included terms 
like "exclusion", "pandering", "incompetence", etc. if perhaps this 
group was bent on retracting the core idea that the web is for everyone 
(the same principle that brought us GNU, and tons of other "open" stuff.

I think we simply need to accept that the Internet *is* the great level 
playing field. Let's not further bury "Some mute, inglorious Milton..." 
by ignoring her or him. IMO such disparagement of folks who do not 
possess the highest of "geek" skills is really beneath what should be a 
fundamental approach to anything that deals broadly with web 
specifications. Reaching a level of supreme ability in the chaos of 
browsers and bugs, and the intricacies of CSS/HTML/XHTML, etc. should 
make us humble, rather than arrogant.

If we accept that basic spirit of free and total access, then of course 
there will be "all kinds". Just accept this and get on with delivering 
what makes the most sense for all.

Thanks, Anne---

Clair

>

Received on Monday, 16 April 2007 23:11:45 UTC