Re: HTML 4.0 draft available

On  8 Jul 97 at 11:23, Jordan Reiter <jreiter@mail.slc.edu>, wrote:

> >Feedback is welcome on the structure of the draft as well as
> >the technical content. I would like to make the specification
> >as easy to understand as possible for a wide range of people.
> 
> I am somewhat bewildered by the sudden surge of "deprecated" attributes and
> tags.  I recognize that the existence of style sheets does make it
> possible to indicate the appearance of the web page, but I question the
> assumption that everyone has access to a browser that supports them;
> especially a browser that supports them correctly.  Assuming that most
> users will not be using the latest versions of software (heck, I still use
> Netscape 3.0), then it is foolish to assume that style sheets can cover
> your problems. Only the newer browsers from Netscape and Explorer support
> style sheets, and they do so in an unconsistent and incomplete form.

I am most concerned that familiar syntax will become obsolete.

> I have attempted using the BIG and SMALL tags in my documents to avoid the
> use of FONT SIZE= and have found it to be limiting and unpredictable.  For
> pages where informational content is key, I could certainly use simple
> HTML formatting in conjunction with style sheets, but for pages that
> depend on visual appearance, especially for businesses, I will probably
> continue using these tags.

If <U> is deprecated, why isn't <TT>, <XMP>, <SAMP>, <MENU>, <DIR>, ...?

I don't like the way things have to be defined in the <HEAD> tag. Surely 
all these modifications should form part of the CSS spec, and not change 
the HTML spec entirely.

I will comment further once I have fully digested the implications.


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Ian Samson
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Opinions expressed in this message are my own 
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Received on Wednesday, 9 July 1997 08:05:09 UTC