Re: Standards (was <br> and generated-content)

Daniel Glazman wrote:
> Alan Gresley wrote:
> 
>> Precisely.
> 
> Oh come on, we're not on www-style to remake history
> but to work on technical matters related to CSS.


So rescue jobs by implementations are outside the technical discussion 
on CSS. I disagree. BTW, what history would we be remaking?


> The browser vendors made what was absolutely needed
> to make the Web a mass-media from a network reserved
> to scientists in labs. It's because browser vendors
> insisted (apart from the original Hotjava experience)
> on never refusing markup invalidity, moved so fast they
> did not have time to standardize, that the Web is the
> marvelous tool we know today.


To my knowledge Netscape 4 was a unforgiving browser. Then IE4 came
along and now all browsers repair invalid markup. They had time to
standardize but then there was this issue of *making money* from the web
that stopped that process in it's tracks.


> Not a perfect tool, but
> not one user out of ten thousands cares about the
> technical side of the Web. They just expect the Web to
> work, whatever the technical skill of the Web authors.


Do you have the data to prove that. Has there been a world poll
conducted asking if browsers should repair invalid markup. This is
just a mantra that is preached over and over again. It is just one wild
assumption that you use in your defense.


> And most Web authors - my dad is my best example at
> all times - are not experienced web designers. The end
> user does not care about it and even if my dad's page
> is technically ugly, the visitor will throw away the
> browser if he/she cannot visit my dad's page. Like it
> or not.


Firstly you say that your father is the best example and secondly the 
end user doesn't care. Your examples are unqualified.


> Speaking of the Web as we know it, I think that fifteen
> years of doing the wrong thing (according to you) AND
> leading to a medium used on a daily basis by hundreds of
> millions of people and becoming mandatory for education,
> science, work, government and all areas of life just
> CANNOT be called a real failure. So much for the "wrong
> thing".


I am not alone in believing this is wrong. Today we have IE, Opera,
Gecko and WebKit all doing there *own thing*. It is a failure when the 
web became a tool to make *multinationals or monopolies rich*. This is 
the real failure.


> You can be a perfectionnist and troll here forever, that
> will NOT change that fact. That said, can we please come
> back on Earth and could you please listen to the browser
> implementors when they say "no, that just cannot be like
> that" ? Thanks.
> 
> </Daniel>


I am a dreamer (not a perfectionist) and my dream is a one interoperable
open web. This may mean that we don't have many implementors but just
one. There is nothing to stop all of you working together on *one
implementation*. That one implementation can have two modes, one
supporting invalid code and the other mode that experience authors can use.


I will accept your *no* when you can provide evidence. All opposition to 
my beliefs (wrongful error recovery and`undefined behaviors) come from 
those who are connected to the development of Gecko and are in the CSS 
working group.


Alan

Received on Sunday, 6 July 2008 17:28:43 UTC