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

> From: Jordan Reiter <jreiter@mail.slc.edu>
> I would agree with the sentiment that crappy websites are being made every
> day.  But this is no different than the hundreds of crappy books, novels,
> magazines, newspapers that are being made every day.  The crucial
> difference, of course, is readability--generally, typed text *is* readable
> by anyone (anyone who *would* buy it, anyway).  Web designers *can* design
> completely unreadable pages.  And I would agree that, often, choosing to
> define a site's HTML code based on design can lead to a site unreadable or
> non-experienceable by many.

In my experience, *most* of the pages on the web fall into this last
category. Further, *most* of the people writing them don't care. If I
ever get around to answering Jordan's original mail, I'll provide more
commentary on this.

> Except that it *is* possible to use methods that integrate the seemingly
> incompatible newer tags so that *any* browser can have a meaningful trip
> through a site.  By combinining alternative layouts, the use of effective
> ALT text, etc., it is possible to create a site that provides for a variety
> of platforms and browsers.

Well, it is for SOME of those tags/attributes/etc. A lot of the
so-called "clever" tags from Netscape make doing this somewhere
between hard and difficult.  What's really annoying is that for most
of them, there was already an existing design and probably an
implemention of an HTML facilty that DID NOT HAVE these problems.

These tags - the ones propogated by vendors with poor or no fallback
for other browsers - are the "manure" I was referring to that W3C has
enshrined in 3.2 and 4.0. I have no problem with W3C putting those in
standards. Most people are using them, and many browser authors are
trying to track them.  Creating a standard that contains them - even
if it's only an industry consortium, and is going to be ignored by
99.9% of document authors - is a service to the web community.

It's the concept that this manure was part of the W3C's parade as
opposed to merely cleaning up after the elephants that's sad.

	<mike

Received on Thursday, 11 September 1997 19:38:53 UTC