- From: Tina Holmboe <tina@greytower.co.uk>
- Date: Sun, 6 May 2007 13:47:28 +0200
- To: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Cc: Tina Holmboe <tina@greytower.co.uk>, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com>, Philip & Le Khanh <Philip-and-LeKhanh@royal-tunbridge-wells.org>, www-html@w3.org, public-html@w3.org
On Sun, May 06, 2007 at 04:21:24AM -0700, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> So there you go. I think bridging the descriptivist/prescriptivist
> philosophical chasm is probably beyond the scope of this mailing list
If, by "descriptivist philosophy" applied to web standards, you
mean "create a new standard by documenting what people do" - then yes,
I think it impossible to bridge.
But I'd love to see anyone write a serious dictionary by simply
and mechanically taking down whatever people say and then suggest
everyone else should use it to learn to communicate ...
Then again, I don't quite follow the language of young people
these days - a common enough complaint throughout the ages - so
perhaps one-sided invention of terms is a good idea.
Just please don't expect anyone to actually grasp that my
example
<b style="position: absolute ; top: 150px;">Welcome!</b>
is an actual header just because the author thought it was
a good idea at the time.
PS: half an hour of explanation and he was using EM and
H*. It's a matter of knowledge. Imagine what the new WA1
draft will do to these authors?
If accepted, I can only shudder to think how we, that is those
of us "in the trenches", are supposed to explain the
situation.
--
- Tina Holmboe
Received on Sunday, 6 May 2007 11:47:41 UTC