Re: Final words, I think, on error handling

I think I've just become a tolerant (after weeks of wishy-washiness).  See
the comment below; it's what made the difference for me.

At 05:53 PM 5/6/97 -0700, Tim Bray wrote:
>For what it's worth, all of the arguments that have been raised
>here have been hashed out vociferously in the ERB.  It is a bit odd;
>on no other issue has there been so little meeting of minds.  I think
>that the draconians and the tolerants really do understand each
>others' positions, and at the same time can't fathom why each other
>can possibly think the way they do.
>
>I think that I am speaking fairly for the tolerants when I say that from 
>their point of view, the draconian policy 
> - flies in the face of SGML practice, 
> - penalizes users for the sins of information producers, 
> - is unenforceable, 
> - can't be right in the face of all possible errors, because no single
>   policy can, and
> - makes "conformant editor" an oxymoron.

You forgot one:
  - codifies the current browser/editor Web ontology and may harm 
    development and adoption of novel applications

>I think I am speaking fairly for the draconians when I say that from
>our point of view, it works because
> - well-formedness is so easy that it isn't a significant burden on anyone,
> - well-formedness is so much cheaper than compensating for its lack that 
>   compensation can never be a good trade-off,
> - 15 minutes after the draconian browsers ship, everyone 
>   will have forgotten gratefully about the bad old days, and 
> - the formal conformance of editors themselves isn't interesting, just 
>   the conformance of their output.
>
>Bottom line: we aren't going to convince each other on this one.
> - Tim

This is unfortunate, if it's really true...

	Eve

Received on Tuesday, 6 May 1997 21:35:21 UTC