Re: HTML4.0 draft: comments re: inclusion of frames (fwd)

At 1:24 PM -0500 1997-10-09, Mike Meyer wrote:
>Sorry to hear that. I was under the impression that the manure
>enshrined in 3.2 and 4.0 was mostly W3C's recognition that 99.9% of
>the HTML authors ignore them, so they might as well formally describe
>what people are doing. Such a description is a good thing, and
>increases the probability that the worthwhile things bundled into the
>standards will be implemented by the big two. This would allow the .1%
>of the HTML authors who have information more valuable than it's
>presentation to use those features.
>
>What you just said makes it sound like said manure is the intended and
>desired result of the W3C standardization process, which is indeed a
>sad thing. I thought the W3C had higher standards than that.
>
>	<mike

I am sick, sick, *sick* of this holier-than-thou attitude that seems to say
that anyone who every made a page that *looked* like something is a peice
of crap and is responsible for turning the web into a peice of bloated
waste.

I think one of the few reasons that people are using the web now is that it
*is* pretty, and that they would not be so eager to use it for an
information source if it were not as pleasing to the eye as it is.

The only problem comes when coding obscures an earlier browser's ability to
view the site, ie:
  Putting "You don't have Netscape or IE3.0!  You suck!" into the NOFRAMES
element
  Putting "Turn on your graphics!" into ALT tags
etc.

But if I design a site with a certain aesthetic in mind, while at the same
time preserving its visibility in all platforms, whether or not the
experience is the same, isn't that okay, too?  Isn't that part of what
platform independence and media indpendence is all about?  I mean, the
aural experience of a site is going to *have* to be different than the
visual experience!

I personally think that regardless of your attitude towards inclusions of
certain elements (FRAME, whatever), I think W3C should be applauded for the
way they explain these elements, especially within the framework of older
or non-compliant browsers.

The web has become a visual medium.  It has.  It's too late for the purists
to do much about it except close off into their own pretty little shell and
create their own perfect little standards.  But if they do this, and
organizations like W3C don't keep some kind of determination over a HTML
standard, then THERE WILL BE NO STANDARD for the 90% of sites that want to
use the more recent elements.

It's not enough that W3C has deprecated such elements as <FONT> and even
well established (2.0, no less) elements such as <I>,<B>,etc...in favor of
CSS.  No!  Still this group of coders, who believe faithfully in either the
virginal beauty of HTML 2.0, or the utopian promise of 3.0, refuse to let
go of the past.

--------------------------------------------------------
[                    Jordan Reiter                     ]
[            mailto:jreiter@mail.slc.edu               ]
[       Just smile and nod and say, "Yes, Jordan."     ]
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Received on Wednesday, 10 September 1997 16:26:42 UTC