Re: Who started "INvalidated HTML!"? -Reply

Rob (wlkngowl@unix.asb.com)
Sat, 14 Mar 1998 01:25:33 -0500 

Message-Id: <199803140623.BAA19575@unix.asb.com>
From: "Rob" <wlkngowl@unix.asb.com>
To: Stephanos Piperoglou <sp249@cam.ac.uk>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 01:25:33 -0500
CC: Charles Peyton Taylor <CTaylor@wposmtp.nps.navy.mil>, connolly@w3.org,
In-reply-to: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980314025747.193B-100000@teatime.joh.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Who started "INvalidated HTML!"? -Reply

On 14 Mar 98, Stephanos Piperoglou <sp249@cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> Excuse me, WHAT STANDARD? Yes, HTML 2.0 is an ISO standard. You think
> IE4/NN4 stick to it? Of course they don't. And they don't stick to HTML 3.2
> either. I'm currently writing an article/tutorial on HTML implementations
> [..]

*cough*

There's a difference between an ideal standard and implementation. And 
when there's a widespread broken implementation in use, developers are 
forced to compensate for it years after the implementation was fixed.

And from a practical point of view, a vendor that wants users to upgrade 
better make sure a new version is backward compatible.

As for standards, I've been able to create pages that validate under the 
HTML 4.0 Transitional DTD *and* look pretty good in older browsers. (When 
non-CSS browsers become rarer I'll eventually make the jump to the Strict 
DTD, probably in the 5th or 6th generation browsers.)

A transitional DTD was a very good idea IMO...

What are the "standards"? Guidelines for good markup that works pretty
well on most browsers. Hence no "best viewed with.." messages and less
worries... my pages are readable on Lynx.  The implementation bugs (with
the exception of using NOFRAMES in Netscape 3...) haven't forced me to
violate the standards, though admittedly I have had to tweak pages
(usually when TABLEs are used) within the standards.

My complaints: (minor) that the vendors are busy adding certain new 
features while still leaving othes unimplemented... I don't think these 
should be classified as "bugs" and (major) that certain authoring 
programs create messy tag soup with horrible support for stylesheets and 
yet have the gall to put an HTML 2.0 or 3.2 DOCTYPE. If one is going to 
gripe, gripe about the authoring tools more than the browsers.

Rob

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