Re: UI WD (compliant browser)

--- Tantek Çelik <tantek@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> Matthew Brealey wrote:
> 
> > - as long as there are millions of pages with CSS
> > like this:
> > #menu0hider {position:absolute; left:5; top:295; z-index:201;
> > visibility:visible; width:92px;}
> 
> It is true that unit-less values for left and top are not valid CSS, but
> that
> means the content/webpage is not compliant - not the browser.

No. It means that the browsers are not compliant because the pages
wouldn't exist if the browsers didn't tolerate them.

The fact is that by releasing incompliant browsers, Microsoft and Netscape

have created the problem. If Microsoft and Netscape had followed the
parsing rules in the first place, none of these problems would exist.

By releasing the incompliant product, they commit themselves to
incompliant software forever. As a result of sloppy error handling there
are now millions of pages, thousands of magazine articles, books, etc.,
that tell people that top: 75 is a valid declaration.

Furthermore, by allowing invalid declarations or tokens (e.g., font-size:
"12px" or P.1), they encourage people to create invalid pages. Far from
being user-friendly, this behaviour is actually very dangerous. The number
of users who say 'But it works in Explorer' is incredible. 

> > , neither Netscape nor Microsoft will release a compliant browser.
> 
> That statement makes the assumption that a browser cannot simultaneously
> be
> compliant and handle legacy uncompliant content.

I would be interested to see how the example that I cited, for which the
only compliant interpretation is to ignore it, can be handled
 
> That assumption will be proved invalid by counter-example within a
> month.

I look forward to seeing it.

=====
----------------------------------------------------------
From Matthew Brealey (http://members.tripod.co.uk/lawnet (for law)or http://members.tripod.co.uk/lawnet/WEBFRAME.HTM (for CSS))
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Received on Sunday, 20 February 2000 10:59:22 UTC