LONGDESC vs D-link (was LONGDESC for OBJECT)

I am against prioritising LONGDESC higher than D-link, since the latter 
works and the former doesn't. In order to provide backwards compatibility 
I agree that IMG will be with us for some time to come, if only as part 
of the content of OBJECTs. 

If one accepts that argument, it makes sense in such cases to use D-links,
which are backwards compatible. To use the IMG tag, with LONGDESC but not 
D-links (as has been suggested on the IG list) provides backwards
compatibility at the expense of accessibility, completely defeating our 
purpose.

I am not actually against the use of LONGDESC per se, but I feel that it 
is a forward-looking solution to problems raised by the continuing use of 
IMG, which is completely backwards incompatible. The problem it solves, 
how to provide marked up information as an alternative to the IMG object, 
is better solved by OBJECT, particularly with the use of a PARAM to 
specify a longdesc. To achieve backwards compatibility AND accessibility, 
one should use IMG and a D-link as content for the OBJECT. 

Which makes the LONGDESC effectively redundant - it is a new solution to 
a problem, but before it is implemented a better solution has already 
been produced and partially implemented.

Charles McCathieNevile

Received on Thursday, 30 July 1998 23:25:38 UTC