Re: [meant for PF] "until user agents" and resource media diversity

Apologies.

The message I just sent was intended for PF where we are supposed to be
preparing comments on the Device Independence Working Draft.  Your comments
are
welcome, but I apologize for filling your mailboxes with misdirected mail.

Al

-- was:

Note:  This is from a thread on the GL list.  William suggested it is an idea
we should share with the Device Independence group.

The summary is a version of "make what you send strict and what you accept
loose."

The "send strict side is that all media you use shall be squeaky clean per
specification."

The "accept loose" side is to accept the incomplete deployment of
standardization achieved by published specifications from W3C and wherever
else.  The way we do this is to "treat ill-supported media features the way we
treat modality-limited media: ensure that there is an alternative that works
well."

In other words it is a parallel application of "eliminate or provide paths
around predictable failure modes."

The rest below is quoted from a message to GL, which was sent with
Subject: [technology - workarounds] Re: .rpm file extension

Al

-- quote

I want to trace the relationship of this point to the current strucuture of
the
guidelines just a little differently.

At 03:23 PM 2001-10-31 , Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>There is an issue here - that of correctly configuring software. 

AG::  The issue could also be described as delivering the whole content.  In
the presence of user side vicissitudes.  The type information that guides the
correct interpretation of data is part of the content.  The inconsistency of
user agent type recognition behavior is a fact of Web compliance to standards
that content preparers should understand and work around.

[...]

Received on Sunday, 11 November 2001 08:27:02 UTC