Re: an official W3C browser test

Inanis Brooke wrote:

>The problem we'd face here is making sure that it's backward compatible with
>previous HTML versions... Now, a decision has to be made then as well: would

	Don't worry too much about backwards compatiability.  A browser
that forced Web designers to code their pages *correctly* would be a good
idea.  Programmers can't write code that includes features that were
removed from the language they are using, why should this be different for
HTML.

>the test suite test support for bad HTML code that runs rampant on the 'net,
>or do we "force" webmasters out there to clean up their code? (I'm pretty

	Encouraging bad code would be a mistake.  The issue of backwards
compatiability should be left up the the browser makers, as well as the
issue of messy code.  Also, the messy code created by WYSISYG development
tools needs to be curbed, making this an excellent oppertunity to do so.
If browser makers find it easier to support the standard than messy code,
hand coders like myself could become a hot commodity for six to twelve
months.  Of course, the advancement of HTML development tools is tangent on
the browser makers conformance.

>done, and let them write in their OWN support for sloppy HTML (since I think
>they did that in the first place.

	The W3C is a standards body and should not be concerned with
non-standard (or rather recomended in the case of HTML) versions of the
standard.  Why should anything change now that we're trying to enforce the
recomendations and standards?

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Red Bird Island Productions
Gordon Worley
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Received on Sunday, 10 January 1999 11:38:33 UTC