Next message: Terje Bless: "Re: HTML 4.0 Validation"
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 16:54:05 +0100
From: Terje Bless <link@tss.no>
To: W3C Validator <www-validator@w3.org>
cc: Nick Kew <nick@webthing.com>
Message-ID: <20010227171214-r01010600-f2ebd6ca@10.0.0.2>
Subject: Re: Table Validation
On 27.02.01 at 12:36, Nick Kew <nick@webthing.com> wrote:
>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.
Oh. I thought you wanted the Validator to more or less silently substitute
a modified DTD for the one specified to enforce properly closed elements.
The red fog drifted up past my eyes and I started frothing at the mouth.
Quit waving the read flags will you! :-)
>No disagreement.
So what are we arguing about? :-)
>>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.
Ah, but not for long! Once we get a decent DOCTYE override working, we'll
stop guessing DOCTYPEs in favour of letting authors test against a
specified DTD. I've made it my life's mission to have the DOCTYPE guessing
code excised from the Validator. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, I already
have a patch in the queue to do just that. :-)
>Page Valet's approach is to *default* to exactly the
>same as the W3C validator, but offer additional options to users.
Right. You offer to use a custom DTD?