Re: 1.5: Discuss link characteristics?

Jon Bosak writes:

> I've been in the publishing business all my adult life and am a whole
> lot more sensitive to typographical issues than the average reader.
[...]
> about documents like that on the Web.  Even as someone who has spent a
> lot of time thinking about formatting, I have no desire whatsoever to
> change the design; all I want to be able to do is to read it
> comfortably.  And in my experience, this level of control is all that
> the overwhelming majority of users want, too.

Coming from a similar background, I have the greatest sympathy for this
point of view. Unfortunately what the users want is not up for
consideration by the browser manufacturers, as they're not the ones
paying the piper. The business is being driven by whichever departments
of corporate buyers happen to have the cash, and if they want BLINK and
FONT then they're going to get it, and to hell with whether its
readable or not...for the moment: things will change.

Did you realise that Mosaic still -- after all this time -- breaks a
line after a left parenthesis when the next byte is an STAGO, so
putting your email address in <TT> inside (parens) can appear very
odd. Despite the complaints, this appears to go unfixed forever.

Stylesheets and overrides are one small way in which the individual
user can influence appearance: they may be evil, but it's a start. We
will never get back to the position where all typeset material has
passed thru the hands of a professional compositor, but if we can
provide (or encourage programmers to provide) better tools, then we may
be able to demonstrate a better way of working. What we need right now
is someone to do for XML what Marc started to do for HTML: write a
browser. 

My 11-yr-old has started to learn C in the belief that he can write a 
better browser than Netscape. I have only mildly tried to dissuade 
him :-)

///Peter

Received on Monday, 17 February 1997 12:46:07 UTC