Re: new anchor type?

 From: Ka-Ping Yee <s-ping@orange.cv.tottori-u.ac.jp>
| > I hope you see the irony in the fact that you simultaneously slam
| > Netscape for not cleaving to standards and for not implementing other
| > things that aren't in standards...
| 
| I see no such contradiction.  I noted items that
| were part of proposed standards which Netscape has
| ignored, and even though HTML 3.0 is expired now, i
| think that the life of HTML 3.0 would have turned
| out very differently if Netscape had paid attention
| to what was in it.
---

Proposed standards *are not* standards.  Proposed standards that are not
near consensus (and HTML 3.0 clearly was not near consensus) bear very
little weight - not much more than "an alternative to consider" when
implementing similar ideas.  I agree that the ideas in 3.0 were mostly
good and useful ones and I wish Netscape and Microsoft had picked more
of them up, but they are not, in *any* sense, standards.

---
| And if you are referring specifically to ID, which
| doesn't happen to be in HTML 3.2 -- for which i have
| still heard no justification at all -- the ID
| attribute is certainly not dead, as it will be used
| with style sheets and is mentioned in a few WDs.
---

There was exactly one justification for things being in 3.2 - that they
were in common use.  ID was not in common use.  I also would have liked
to see them issue a "prospective" standard specifying what the ERB felt
would be common practice by, say, the end of the year, but that is not
what 3.2 is.

I'm not trying to defend Netscape here - in trying to preserve their
market advantage they are clearly using every tactic they can to keep
the Microsoft steamroller at bay, including using the market leader's
ability to ignore standards efforts - but failure to observe 3.0 is not
a sin in my eyes.  The community failed to get 3.0 done and left the
vendors free to do whatever they liked.

For me, at least, the bottom line is still "Which browser is the most
polished, capable product across the platforms I need?" and Netscape is
still the clear winner, and likely to remain so as long as Microsoft is
interested only in proprietary platforms (Windows and Macintosh)...

scott

--
scott preece
motorola/mcg urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
phone:	217-384-8589			  fax:	217-384-8550
internet mail:	preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com

Received on Monday, 1 July 1996 11:39:52 UTC