Doctype

Once upon a time lilley shaped the electrons to say...
>Typing (or pasting) one line is "a pain in the ass to keep straight" ?

It is when it keeps changing.  And what if I use M$IE *and* NS extensions 
in the same page.  Tell me the DOCTYPE for that.

>> The web is an open playing field.  If I decide to use <FONT COLOR="#rrggbb">
>> on my pages, that's my decision.  I know very well that only NS 2.0 will
>> use it.
>No you don't. There are several other browsers that understand that, and 
>that particular extension does not originate with NS.

Ok, bad choice, it was the first thing to come to mind.

>These uses are all fine. The point is to give browsers an indication what 
>extensions you have used.

What happened to the way things were in 91-92?  If a browser doesn't 
recognize tags, it just ignores them?  When did it become necessary for the
author to be pendantic and explictity state DOCTYPES?

I've been following HTML development since then and it's only recently that
people seem to be making a big deal out of this.  As far as I'm concerned,
if a browser is lame enough to require being told explicitly what tag set
is being used, it isn't worth using.  I've used mostly Mosaic, Netscape,
and Lynx, and M$IE a bit, and none have had problems dealing with HTML
extensions as long as the page is still solid when the extensions are ignored.
Is there a browser that needs DOCTYPE for something?  If so, why?

-MZ
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Received on Tuesday, 13 February 1996 12:55:52 UTC