Re: anchors in W3C specs

At 16:59 2001 12 05 +0900, Masayasu Ishikawa wrote:
>Paul Grosso <pgrosso@arbortext.com> wrote:
>
>> I have noted an increasing number of such links in W3C 
>> documents, and I note with great concern that the W3C link 
>> validator does not even so much as give a warning for such 
>> links which are effectively BROKEN for all Netscape users.
>
>Because it is Netscape 4.x which is broken, not links.

No question that Netscape 4.x is broken in this respect, but...

>> Personally, I'd like to see our pub styles indicate that
>> W3C specs should follow the XHTML compatibility guideline
>> that suggests targets of the form <a id="foo" name="foo">
>> are used, and I'd like to see the link validator give
>> errors (or at least warnings) for link targets using an
>> id since that won't work in many of the deployed browsers.
>
>I'm not against using both the "id" and "name" attributes (when
>it is feasible), but the link validator MUST NOT give "errors"
>for perfectly valid link targets, and they do work in many of
>the deployed browsers (except Netscape 4.x).


...[change "give errors" to "give warnings" and] I disagree
completely here.  The validator gives warnings for things 
like a missing or extra trailing slash and such, and the
fact is that for the large proportion of real people out
there using Netscape 4.x, these links simply do not work.

Let's face facts, if the W3C were a corporation trying to
attract customers with its public web site, it wouldn't
put up pages that don't work for a large segment of the
population regardless of "whose fault it is."  We should
change the validator so that it gives warnings for links
that do not follow the XHTML compatibility guidelines.

paul

Received on Wednesday, 5 December 2001 07:54:43 UTC