Re: Fw: Checkpoint 3.3

ah, the sleeping giant has awoken and I thank you for the kind words.  But
since my life's work is to play devil's advocate and always have an
apprentice on staff, i must comment on your last line.

If you go outside these groups and high-end web houses, web developers still
do not know what "deprecate" is.  Not many read the specs - that is for
technical or inquisitive types.  Instead, they just go to the web authoring
tool (whatever version they are using) and type away.  If they know it has
deprecated they may chose not to use it because they do not understand it
and they like their design. In presentations, I have asked for a show of
hands many times and many web developers have no idea why it is there, let
alone it know what it is.

I think we should consider putting "do not use deprecated "stuff" on the
QuickTips?  I know, I know, i just took back your free line <grin>

rob

----- Original Message -----
From: William Loughborough <love26@gorge.net>
To: Robert Neff <robneff@home.com>
Cc: wai-gl <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>; <w3c-wai-eo@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 1999 6:21 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Checkpoint 3.3


> I've been following this thread from the sidelines but now I will jump
> in.  It is possible that CSS is the most fundamentally important part of
> this entire undertaking because the separation of "content", "structure"
> and "presentation" is vital to almost all aspects of accessibility.
>
> *HOWEVER*
>
> The "until User Agents comply" problem makes Rob's points significant.
> If we make a 20 mph speed limit that almost everybody ignores, the full
> implementation of this stuff will be jeopardized.  I suggest an erratum
> for checkpoint 3.3 that includes "amnesty" for otherwise conformant
> sites - until User Agents comply - but strongly "denounce" the
> distribution of browsers that don't treat CSS well.  There are hundreds
> of millions of Websites and probably less than a hundred browsers. It is
> a bit Draconian to put P2 (and AA conformance) on something that will be
> a while coming online without somehow acknowledging that you're not a
> sociopath if your site uses <i> and <b> or even (shudder!) <font>. I
> cannot agree however that nobody knows what "deprecate" means.
> --
> Love.
>             ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE
> http://dicomp.pair.com
>

Received on Sunday, 18 July 1999 16:36:47 UTC