misuse / abuse of html (was Re: CAPTION element for OBJECT?)

once upon a time, walter said-

> He calls it abuse, Abigail calls it abuse, you call it misuse -- what on
> earth is your problem with USING tables? To me, the only abuse of tables
> is when authors override scalability (as in <TABLE WIDTH=1024>).

i agree that overriding of scalability issues is an abuse of tables,
though i must take issue with your concessions to many of the recent uses
of tables.

i label as abuse any use of html that makes it more difficult for non-gui
browsers to fully access the presented information.  this can take many
forms, from use of tables for purely layout purposes to imagemaps without
corresponding textual navigation.  call me crazy, but i refuse to support
the assumption that the only market out there is graphical.  if you try to
convert a table-based page to hdml, it won't be pretty.

right now, i get around this in one of two ways:
1)browser-negotiate, and do massive ssi's to stuff the content into either
a table for gui browsers and a text layout for non, or
2)tell them to submit and get a gui browser.

i'm very encouraged that means will be popularly available soon for
attractive layouts without sinking your content into a basically
proprietary format or bogging down the server with excess ssi's

matt lanier
matt@lanier.org 

Received on Thursday, 10 July 1997 12:15:30 UTC