- From: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>
- Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 12:27:57 -0500
- To: www-html@w3.org, public-html@w3.org
- Cc: "Roger Johansson" <roger@456bereastreet.com>
In "Help keep accessibility and semantics in HTML" [1], Roger Johansson comments that: > The politically correct opinion seems to be that anything > that is widely used should be adopted ('pave the cowpaths'). > And that leaves little or no room for semantics and > accessibility. [2] > On 7 maj 2007, at 17.09, Philip & Le Khanh wrote: [3] > >> Just because a practice is prevalent in the real >> world doesn't mean we should necessarily sanction or >> ratify it, IMHO. > > On 7 may 2007 Roger Johansson wrote: > > Thanks for saying that out loud. Pave the cowpaths is, > in my opinion, a really bad design principle. The proposed HTML 5 design principle "Pave The Cowpaths" [4] does indeed seem to condone many practices that past specs may have frowned upon. "Pave the Cowpaths" is an underlying principle being debated in many* of the recent semantics and accessibility threads on public-html@w3.org. Thus I don't think it's appropriate to include this in the official design principles. "The Calf Path" [5] by Sam Walter Foss (1895) was a "popular humorous poem during the early days of the good roads movement. In the poem, Foss describes how a crooked path originally carved by a calf walking home developed into a major road traveled by hundreds of thousands of people." [6] Foss talks of of blindly following a crooked cow path course. > They followed still his crooked way, > And lost one hundred years a day; > > For thus such reverence is lent, > To well established precedent. > > A moral lesson this might teach, > Were I ordained and called to preach; > > For men are prone to go it blind, > Along the calf-paths of the mind; > > And work away from sun to sun, > To do what other men have done. > > They follow in the beaten track, > And out and in, and forth and back, > > And still their devious course pursue, > To keep the path that others do. More recently, in 'Don't Pave the Cowpaths' [7], Mike Arace discusses why codifying bad practices may not be a good idea. > I was attending a business analysis training session the > other day, learning to flowchart my way to self-actualization > and inner peace, when the trainer brought up that little gem. > I am not usually one to fall prey to generic business > analogies, but this one jumped out at me. He explained it > like this: > >> When flying into Dallas-Fort Worth, the cities seem to >> shoot up out of nowhere from a giant prairie. Looking >> closely at the ground you will see many of the roads >> leading into the cities curve and bend, following no >> discernable logic at all. Why are they like this? >> Because back when Dallas was primarily a ranching >> town those were the paths the cattle would follow >> as they were driven into town. They would walk the >> long way around hills, cross rivers only at the low >> points, and follow a path of least resistance the >> whole way there. Over time people started following >> the same paths, and eventually they paved them and >> made them permanent. So now the town has a bunch >> of inefficient roads just because that was the way >> they had always been. > > When applied to the world of information technology, this > analogy can be taken to mean that you shouldn't write new > applications that codify bad practices already in place > in a business or organization. New programs are a chance > to get things right and should be used as an opportunity > to ask the challenging questions about why things are > the way they are and what can be done better. Laura [1] http://tinyurl.com/2h6k96 [2] http://tinyurl.com/yrhkgb [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007May/0822.html [4] http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ProposedDesignPrinciples [5] http://www.mitcharf.com/mitcharf/art/poems/calfpath.html [6] http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/summer96/p96su20.htm [7] http://mikeomatic.net/?page_id=31 *Threads include: The Semantic Debate Cleaning House Rethinking HTML 5 Support Existing Content Predefined Class Names Solution -- Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009 http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/
Received on Friday, 11 May 2007 17:28:08 UTC