Re: [html4all] HTML5 Alternative Text, and Authoring Tools

On 15/05/2008, Daniel Glazman <daniel.glazman@disruptive-innovations.com> wrote:
> Philip TAYLOR (Ret'd) wrote:
>
>
> > which seems to me to hit the nail on the head.  ALT is mandatory,
> > but if a user refuses to provide ALT text, then the editing tool
> > is correct to emit INVALID HTML (and, presumably, to warn the user
> > that this regrettable behaviour has been necessary).
> >
>
>  So conformance criteria for a tool include the possibility of non-
>  conformance for output instances. I think the test suite for
>  an authoring tool is going to be a bit of a syllogism.
>
>   tool A is conformant because it outputs conformant instances
>   but since it should also be able to output non-conformant instances,
>   conformance is nill. So it's conformant and non-conformant at the same
>   time.
>
>  And I hope nobody has certification in mind !

A tool is as good as its input - garbage in, garbage out. A compliant
authoring tool can be used to generate non-compliant content. You
might use a compliant authoring tool to create a table-based layout,
which doesn't conform to the spec - that's not the authoring tool's
fault. In the same way, if an author deliberately chooses not to
provide alternative text, the output from the tool should be
considered invalid.

Gez

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Received on Thursday, 15 May 2008 14:39:10 UTC