RE: [Q] META "Refresh" deprecated ?

On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Dave  J Woolley wrote:

> > From: Stephane Bailliez [SMTP:stephane.bailliez@imediation.com]
> > 
> > I have a question concerning the <meta http-equiv="REFRESH" ...
> > 
> It's been in no version of the HTTP spec that I have ever seen
> (nor for that matter, in any HTML spec.).  I don't think it
> is possible to deprecate it in HTML without deprecating 
> http_equiv in its entirety.

The HTTP-EQUIV attribute probably should be deprecated.  It was
intended for *servers*, not clients (see RFC 1866), but I doubt
there's a server that bothers mucking inside tagsoup documents for
stuff like this.

> Its problems are:
> [...]
> - probably more than 50% of the time it is misused to simulate
>   an HTTP level redirect (either through lack of knowledge/
>   reliance on folklore, or because the ISP isn't providing meta
>   data access).

Yes, the infamous refresh with CONTENT="0;[some-url]".  This is
perhaps the biggest indictment of this stupid kludge: the zero second
pause kills the back-button on the very browser that introduced this!


Arjun

Received on Tuesday, 22 February 2000 07:23:37 UTC