RE: Aaargh .. Whatever happened to Bobby?

It would appear that you were looking at a dynamically created page.
Specifically, a Cold Fusion created page.  There are three very easy ways to
tell when you hit Cold Fusion pages:

1) The file name in the url (if present) will end in .cfm
2) The source code will (probably) contain a lot of blank lines which is
where the actual CF code is.  Since it is processed on the server, it
outputs a blank line for every line of CF code.  This can be turned off in
CF administrator.
3) Any error messages displaying anything in pound signs is CF code.

So, while I don't doubt the source code is bad, a bunch of blank lines is
not a stupid trick to hide source code as you have postulated.

As for the errors, it sounds like they need a little help with their CF
code.

Jim Fitzgerald
SGS Cold Fusion Applications Developer


-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Kew [mailto:nick@webthing.com]
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 4:17 PM
To: w3c-wai-er-ig@w3.org; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Aaargh .. Whatever happened to Bobby?



I've just visited Bobby for the first time in - I forget how long.
What a ghastly mess!

The first thing that happened was a long wait for Netscape to display
the page[1].  This was repeated later whenever I used the back button
to return to <URL:http://www.cast.org/bobby/>, indicating that the
page's labyrinthine construction is the main culprit.

When the page finally displayed, it showed most of the symptoms of a
poorly-written 1997 kool-deziner page.  A look at the source confirms
a wealth of the worst legacy markup: tables-for-layout, liberal use of
<FONT>, spacer GIFs, etc (as well as several hundred blank lines at
the top: is this some stupid hide-source trick?).  

Furthermore, not only is the HTML a mess, but the backend is broken.
Many of the options there, including the "Change Interface" link
and the "Site Tools" select box, generated internal server errors
whenever I tried them - for example:

Error Diagnostic Information

 An error occurred while evaluating the expression: 

 "#session.LastPage#"

 Error near line 34, column 20.

 Error resolving parameter SESSION.LASTPAGE


I've put a screendump of what Netscape 4.7 displays at
<URL:http://valet.webthing.com/bobby.png>
Lynx is a little better, but still looks extremely silly.

Conclusion: what can I say?  How can anyone take this seriously?


[1] This is a FreeBSD box, and doesn't have enough RAM to run Mozilla -
so I'm a mild case of requiring accessibility myself.

-- 
Nick Kew

Is your site a lawsuit waiting to happen?
See <URL:http://valet.webthing.com/intranet/> before it's too late.

Received on Tuesday, 13 February 2001 09:00:24 UTC