RE: Layout versus data tables proposal for null summary attribute

Jesper wrote:
> Many tools for making web pages put in all sorts of
> attributes="" by default so web page authors can fill them in.

Upon what do you base this Jesper? Which tools do this? I'm not being
facetious at all -- I'm geniunely curious to know which tools you mean here.

> Many web page authors when putting in attributes "by hand", often start
> with title="", summary="", alt="", etc. especially when they are in
> doubt of what value to use right a way, they prefer to put in the
> attribute first and to add the right value later.

Again, upon what do you base this? For what it's worth, I've been building
sites for years and have never started with this, and don't have a
preference to put in the attribute="" first and add the right value later.
How many authors have you observed doing this?

> Most often the meaning of attribute="" is not null but that the author has
> forgotten to finish the attribute, the right value is not yet in place.

Again, as I said in my last email, from what I have seen (through teaching
thousands of hours of web development classes and working in development
teams on many projects), most people that add attribute="" are doing so
because that have consciously thought about it, and not because they have
forgotten.

Best regards,
Derek.
-- 
Derek Featherstone     feather@wats.ca
phone: 613.599.9784;   toll-free: 1.866.932.4878 (North America)
Web Accessibility:  http://www.wats.ca
Personal: http://www.boxofchocolates.ca

Received on Friday, 27 August 2004 14:29:22 UTC