Re: Balancing the myth-busting.

On  9 Aug, Gez Lemon wrote:

>>  Making a case against automated testing while using the tools
>>  incorrectly is an interesting practice.
> 
> You're absolutely correct, but that was the point I was trying to
> make. Developers are encouraged to separate structure, presentation,
> and behaviour. Unfortunately, the free testing tools only validate the
> markup. People subscribed to this list will understand that, but I

  We must look at this more in-depth, Gez. The issue I was trying to
  raise with my above comment - and I must apologise for my acerbic
  tone - was that the W3C validator has one specific job, and one job
  only: it checks the syntax of a markup language against a DTD.

  That is *all* it does - and it is wrong to say that it doesn't catch
  an error, when the markup doesn't contain the erroneous attribute.

  Testing whether markup is correct after it has been manipulated by
  something-or-other on the client side is way out of scope for the
  validator.



> Accessibility validators are useful, but all the time they only
> evaluate markup, are very limited. Also, the context could never be

  But the W3C syntax checker - the technical term for which is
  "validator" - isn't an accessibility tool. It checks grammar of
  supplied markup, and that's *all* it does.

  I suggest you remove that test from your article, as it really is not
  related to the other tools.

-- 
 -    Tina Holmboe                    Greytower Technologies
   tina@greytower.net                http://www.greytower.net/
   [+46] 0708 557 905

Received on Tuesday, 9 August 2005 15:26:16 UTC