- From: Chris Tilbury <C.J.Tilbury@estate.warwick.ac.uk>
- Date: Tue, 18 Jul 1995 16:23:25 BST
- To: "Ian S. Graham" <igraham@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
- Cc: www-html@www10.w3.org
On 18 Jul 95 at 10:27, Ian S. Graham wrote: [someone else wrote ...] > > Netscape color extensions (like many other netscape extensions) > > are hot air and presumptiously defined. > > > > Unfortunately, style sheets are still being defined :) > Hmm.... so something that is implemented, operational and popular is > "hot air", while "still being defined" stylesheets are not??? No; Netscape's color extensions are hot air, and presumptiously defined, because they [Netscape] seem to have (or have had) the idea that by implementing these elements in their own browser - elements, I might add, which are entirely platform-dependent and conflict /wildly/ with some of the fundamentals principles guiding the development of HTML, version 3, those being "Platform Independence"[1], "Content not Presentation Markup"[2], and "Support for Non-Visual Media"[3] - that they can somehow "guide"[4] (force?) the path of the standardisation process, presumably by suggesting that since so many pages have been written with these attributes and tags, not to incorporate them would be unfair (since most of the Netscape tags or attributes are terribly appropriate as HTML). On the other hand, stylesheets are not any of these precisely because they are still being defined - no any one current implementation is making any claims of being the definitive "standard", and in fact, by their nature, every implementation could be completely different without it mattering one iota. (The stylesheet for a graphical browser is hardly going to be appropriate for a browser which uses speech synthesis, for example). The fact that something is implemented, operational and popular does not necessarily make it either appropriate or correct. References <URL:http://www.hpl.hp.co.uk/people/dsr/html/intro.html> [1] para 19 [2] para 20 [3] para 22 <URL:http://home.netscape.com/assist/net_sites/html_extensions.html> [4] para 2, specifically: "Netscape Communications will continue to work with the appropriate standards bodies, including W3C and the authors of other WWW browsers, in an attempt to have these extensions available in all browsers in the near future." Regards, Chris -- Chris Tilbury, Estates Office, University of Warwick, UK, CV4 7AL Tel: +44 1203 523523 x2665 Fax: +44 1203 524444 MIME mail welcomed mailto:Chris.Tilbury@estate.warwick.ac.uk
Received on Tuesday, 18 July 1995 11:24:32 UTC