Re: <plaintext> tag obsolete? I think not!
David Cary (d.cary@ieee.org)
Tue, 3 Feb 1998 14:59:39 -0500
Message-Id: <l03130304b0fc55fcc3cd@[192.168.1.40]>
In-Reply-To:
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 14:59:39 -0500
To: www-html@w3.org, roconnor@uwaterloo.ca
From: David Cary <d.cary@ieee.org>
Subject: Re: <plaintext> tag obsolete? I think not!
It is possible to print *any* characters to the screen using the <pre> tag;
anything you could possibly want to display with the <plaintext> tag, you
can also display using the <pre> tag instead.
Therefore the <plaintext> tag is redundant and unneeded.
Of course, it's a little more difficult trying to edit a page with a text
editor such that it will "display" the appearance of html code, but so ?
The <plaintext> tag makes text more difficult to parse by making things
less consistent.
Using this argument, you could say that the only way a VCR could make a
8-track tape player obsolete is if it provided all the functionality of
that 8-track tape player. But it doesn't ! The 8-track tape player accepts
those classic 8-track tapes, and plays the music on them, but the VCR does
not.
I think it is a false argument.
I am kind of skeptical of the "CDATA" code listed. I think this is SGML
markup, and although it might work fine in browsers based on SGML, I
thought the HTML standard recommended *not* putting SGML code into HTML
documents.
I think the "correct" way to handle this is
"if you want to display a <, type <"
"if you want to display a >, type >"
"if you want to display a &, type &"
"if you want to display any other ISO-8859-1 character, just type it in
literally."
(those are the only modifications needed
to display *any* desired ISO-8859-1 text, right ?).
>> The only way <pre> could make the <plaintext> tag obsolete is if it
>> provided all the functionality of the <plaintext> tag. But it doesn't!
>> <Plaintext> printed all the html code to the screen. The <pre> tag
>> reads the HTML code and does the necessary formatting.
>
>Sorry to druge this up. I've been reading through the archives.
>
>Wouldn't the "correct" way to handle this be:
><PRE>
><![CDATA[ << Your favourate HTML text goes here, just be careful when
>using two ]'s followed by an >. >> ]]>
></PRE>
>
>--
>Russell O'Connor roconnor@uwaterloo.ca
> <URL:http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/%7Eroconnor/>
>"And truth irreversibly destroys the meaning of its own message"
>-- Anindita Dutta, "The Paradox of Truth, the Truth of Entropy"
--
+ David Cary "mailto:d.cary@ieee.org" "http://www.rdrop.com/~cary/"
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