Re: Flickr and alt

On Aug 19, 2008, at 18:24, Sam Kuper wrote:

> 2008/8/19 Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi>
> The notion that a syntax specification should require software  
> conforming to the specification to produce syntactically non-
> conforming output under some circumstances is patently bizarre.
>
> I don't agree, and here's an example that illustrates why I don't.
>
> I use the Oxygen XML editor to edit XHTML documents. By means of a  
> coloured box in the corner of the editing pane, which is green if  
> the document is valid and red otherwise, it can tell me at a glance  
> whether or not the document I am editing is valid XHTML.

Oxygen is in a different class of software than what I was talking  
about. I should have said that I was talking about software that hides  
the HTML language from the end user. That is, the end user takes some  
high-level actions and the piece of software generates HTML without  
the user having to know anything about HTML.

Oxygen is essentially a glorified text editor much like Eclipse JDT's  
Java editor. Oxygen lets you enter any text but also provides  
autocompletion and validation of the editor buffer. Oxygen most  
definitely isn't hiding the markup language from its user.

> Something Oxygen does not do, and, I believe, should not do, is  
> prevent me from publishing my mark up if it is invalid. I'm happy  
> for it to notify me that my mark up isn't valid (if it isn't), and  
> to remind me that it should normally be valid. But if I do want to  
> output invalid mark up for some reason (for instance, because I'm in  
> the middle of a work in progress, or because I want to publish a  
> demonstration of what invalid mark up looks like and why not to use  
> it), then I really should be able to.


However, a program that is designed not to expose HTML to the user  
should always generate valid HTML. It doesn't make sense to put a user  
who knows nothing about HTML in charge of keeping the output valid.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Wednesday, 20 August 2008 06:34:43 UTC