Re: Cleaning House

On Sun, May 06, 2007 at 04:21:24AM -0700, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

> So there you go. I think bridging the descriptivist/prescriptivist  
> philosophical chasm is probably beyond the scope of this mailing list  

  If, by "descriptivist philosophy" applied to web standards, you
  mean "create a new standard by documenting what people do" - then yes,
  I think it impossible to bridge.

  But I'd love to see anyone write a serious dictionary by simply
  and mechanically taking down whatever people say and then suggest
  everyone else should use it to learn to communicate ...

  Then again, I don't quite follow the language of young people
  these days - a common enough complaint throughout the ages - so
  perhaps one-sided invention of terms is a good idea.

  Just please don't expect anyone to actually grasp that my
  example

    <b style="position: absolute ; top: 150px;">Welcome!</b>

  is an actual header just because the author thought it was
  a good idea at the time.

  PS: half an hour of explanation and he was using EM and
  H*. It's a matter of knowledge. Imagine what the new WA1
  draft will do to these authors?

  If accepted, I can only shudder to think how we, that is those
  of us "in the trenches", are supposed to explain the
  situation. 


-- 
 - Tina Holmboe

Received on Sunday, 6 May 2007 11:47:41 UTC