Re: The Core Beliefs of Usability and Their CSS Application

> > - the one technology problem - most authors want to think they are
> >   writing a document in a single language, and are prepared to confuse
> >   HTML, CSS and EcmaScript, but not server configuration directives;
> 
> I don't quite follow what the point of that statement is. I'm not
> trying to be difficult, but what are you getting at?

This is the same problem that means layering won't work.  A large
proportion of web authors want to write HTML.  By HTML they mean the file
that causes IE6 to produce the display they want, including scripting,
styles, etc.  Currently server configuration, and therefore proper control
of things like caching are not done because they cannot be done in the
"HTML" file.

> I don't see where there is the need for configuration at all. It
> should be a zero-configure system. I don't have to configure my web
> server to respond to incoming requests. It should be part of the
> underlying algorithm.

Servers aren't HTML servers, they are web resource servers.  In some
cases it may be important that a specific format be served, and, like
with other negotiation types, there may be a need to quality 
rank material.

> I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing anymore. I'm talking
> about the fallback mechanism as it relates to alternative media types.
> I'm a firm believer in alt text.

Images are most often used as an alternative media type for HTML
text.  XHTML 2.0 treats the provision of alternative text as a
fallback from the replacement image to the original text, or from
a non-directly replaceable image to a text near equivalent.

Received on Tuesday, 5 July 2005 06:39:44 UTC