Re: Structure Again!

>     I understand you are writing "Tongue in Cheek" here ...

I sure am. I notice that Mr.Loughborough tends to move quesitons towards
philisophical arguements, whih is great. I thought he might enjoy a little
satire based on some of his opinions, and I'm sure he got the message (I'm
also sure if he had written it it would have been a logarithmic order of
magnitude better than my efforts).
Things like "language doesn't have meaning, it's just art" do have good
satirical value: it can easily be argued that language is an art form, but
the stire comes from the fact that the art aspect is not in replacement to
the meaning side - whereas in "pure" art it often is. If you read what I
have written quite carefully, it can be construed as being quite funny.

> The whole purpose of presentation is to make the meaning of the site
> apparent. That's why merely marking up text and allowing user control of
> background and fonts doesn't make much of a real difference in
> "accessibilities for disabilities". That's also why it doesn't matter what
> commands to use to create the presentation, just that you do it.

Exactly my point.

> Most likely, they can look it up in any word processor, since that is the
> standard way that word processors present these options. But more
important
> is that your sentence is a lousy example.

Not really, it isn't very future proof so it is a very good example. We are
always looking for forwards compatability because it is a founding principle
of the Web: it's why it still exists.

> Historically, there hasn't been much of a precedent for "hard coding
> meaning" in anything. It's always been, "here it is for now" ... and if
> 3,000 years later it becomes cryptic,

The problem is that you have used an unnesesary hyperbole there: in reality
on the Web 5 years is well out of date.

> Sean, the more I learn about and ponder on the Semantic Web the more I
> think it is a passing fancy. What are we going to do about all the text
> that is currently on the web, as unadorned text? Go back, and try to
> discern author's "meaning" and apply "mark-up" to it.

No the Seamntic Web is something different altogether. I'm a bit of a rogue
in the sense that I believe if there is going to be an output media for the
SW, then it may as well be Semantic itself. There are lots of different ways
of tying that all up...have you seen my XHTML to RDF deeley:
http://www.mysterylights.com/xhtmltordf/?

> And users really don't give a flying flip whether <b></b>
> or <important></important> makes their browser show
> the stuff right, just that it does.

I'm sure they'll get upset if their mobile devices don't apply style
correctly. The WAP world is already complaining about the complexity handed
down from HTML and CSS.

> And all of this is just about the text accessibility of the web, not the
> accessibility of the web in general.

My point is that Web trends and accessibility are intrinsically linked. The
fact is that the Web is becoming more accessible by design, and I won't let
anything get in the way of that if I can help it.

Kindest Regards,
Sean B. Palmer
http://xhtml.waptechinfo.com/swr/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/
"Perhaps, but let's not get bogged down in semantics."
   - Homer J. Simpson, BABF07.

Received on Tuesday, 28 November 2000 05:52:16 UTC