Re: Table Validation

From: Nick Kew (nick@webthing.com)
Date: Tue, Feb 27 2001

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    Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 12:36:39 +0000 (GMT)
    From: Nick Kew <nick@webthing.com>
    To: Terje Bless <link@tss.no>
    cc: www-validator@w3.org
    Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0102271225030.376-100000@fenris.webthing.com>
    Subject: Re: Table Validation
    
    
    On Tue, 27 Feb 2001, Terje Bless wrote:
    
    > On 27.02.01 at 11:10, Nick Kew <nick@webthing.com> wrote:
    > > [ custom DTD ]
    > 
    > Yes. As a document author I see no problem with doing this. In fact I
    > commonly encourage custom DTDs and tools that support them.
    
    Metoo.
    
    >	 _But_ this is a
    > technique for document authors and not for Validators.
    
    Agreed.  But validators are a tool for authors.  Someone asked how to
    do something with the tool.  You explained why the tool itself won't
    do what he wants unbidden.  I explained how he *can* use the tool to
    accomplish what he wants.  No disagreement.
    
    >	 Once the Validators
    > make judgement calls about what DTD you /really/ meant, it's no longer a
    > validator but rather a mere "lint".
    
    Ah, but all the validators do exactly that, every time they encounter
    a document lacking a DOCTYPE declaration.  Last time I checked, the
    correct behaviour here is to validate against HTML 2.0, but none of
    them do that.  Page Valet's approach is to *default* to exactly the
    same as the W3C validator, but offer additional options to users.
    
    >	 Bertilo's suggestion to move to XHTML
    > is a better idea in this particular case.
    
    [ a suggestion also mentioned in my first post in this thread ]
    
    That might depend on other factors, such as software being used to
    prepare/publish a site.
    
    -- 
    Nick Kew
    
    Is your site a lawsuit waiting to happen?
    See <URL:http://valet.webthing.com/intranet/> before it's too late.