- From: Gregory J. Rosmaita <oedipus@hicom.net>
- Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:03:52 -0400
- To: HTML Working Group <public-html@w3.org>, wai-xtech@w3.org, scott lewis <sfl@scotfl.ca>
scott lewis wrote, quote: For example, what is the following image of? File Name: IMG20674.JPG Size: 1024 x 768 pixels Title: This was awesome! Tags: vacation06 Automatically generated @alt: "This was awesome! - IMG20674.JPG" I can't imagine anyone presented with that would be able to determine that the image is a picture of a humpback whale breaching the surface off the coast of California. Not even in the vaguest terms. The @alt takes up space in the document, adding to the bandwidth required to transfer the document, the space required to store the document, and the time required to process the document. I would suggest that the @alt should provide some value that justifies its presence in the document unquote then why don't those who complain about microsoft having "broken" object formally ask the microsoft Advisory Council rep to make MSIE standards compliant, so that we could use OBJECT and avoid the code bloat of VIDEO, AUDIO, etc. -- to argue that alt text adds to page bloat is a very strange position to take, especially when the footprint of alt text is VERY small, compared to the footprint of the object being described as well as the chrome manipulation so common on commercial, portal and social networking sites adds FAR more code bloat than "A humpbacked whale, surfacing in a plume of ocean spray." how many bytes does that simple descriptor take compared to the picture itself? the charge that ALT is code bloat is a straw man, whose ashes have been cold for 10 years now -- just because something is encased in an IMG element doesn't tell me anything other than "here is something you can do absolutely nothing with yourself, except save it and ask someone to describe it to you, and given the state of web security, downloading an arbitrary binary file is NOT a good idea, nor should it be forced upon an individual user as merely step 1 of the process... anyone can put any type of binary file in an IMG element, and even when used correctly, certain binary image filetypes are known to have security issues and to have the unintended capacity to release an unknown, unwanted, and probably mallicious bit of code which can bring the user -- and the network he or she is connected to -- to a halting, and jarring crash... gregory. ------------------------------------------------------------- SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else. -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary ------------------------------------------------------------- Gregory J. Rosmaita: oedipus@hicom.net Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/ Oedipus' Online Complex: http://my.opera.com/oedipus -------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Thursday, 16 August 2007 18:04:01 UTC