Re: A Compromise to the Versioning Debate

On Thu, 19 Apr 2007 03:01:57 +0100, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com>  
wrote:

>>>> Yes, of course. But if nothing tells us when we make mistakes, we  
>>>> can't learn from them (which is why I think browsers somehow warning  
>>>> about errors is a very good idea).
>>>
>>> They do. There's an error console. We can't show errors in the UI. End  
>>> users don't care about that.
>>
>> If there is absolutely no indicator in regular browser UI, authors  
>> won't know when there's a long list of errors waiting for them in the  
>> error console.
>
> If authors don't care, nothing will help them.

Well, I care, but I don't find Opera's Error Console any use for spotting  
errors - I just can't keep it open all the time, and without that I can be  
blissfully unaware.

>> It might even be useful to some users - especially non-technical  
>> decision-makers could spot buggy tools and barely working pages. Having  
>> warnings noticable by users might be an incentive for authors to fix  
>> errors even when page _seems_ to work without problems.
>
> Over 95% of the pages out there have syntax errors. Almost no page is  
> conforming. It would just be an icon you would get to see for every page  
> you view and have no clue what it's for.

I know. I'm not trying to get whole Internet to validate. In my previous  
e-mail I've stated:
"It should also be rare enough (not shown when error can be recovered from  
in a cross-browser fashion) so it won't lose its meaning and get ignored."

Non-conformance may be reported in the console, but the indicator in  
browser chrome should be reserved only for really important problems that  
are blockers for future specifications and/or can't be implemented in a  
cross-browser fashion (like innerHTML used on mis-nested <form> that has  
been mentioned).

-- 
regards, Kornel Lesinski

Received on Thursday, 19 April 2007 18:41:27 UTC