Re: XHTML 2.0 -- A Chance to Improve Document Structure?

"Actually removing all presentational markup from tables is also on
the agenda for XHTML 2.0, so "table for layout" would become nonsense
in XHTML 2.0."

I know I'm entering the discussion a little late here, and also saying
something very critical... appologies in advance.

What I've just learned for myself, by daring to do a site which uses no
tables at all, but css-positioning, is that tables for layout will be around
for a very long time, thanks to the giant Netscape problem.

What I mean is this:
Netscape 4.x renders CSS positioning very poorly. Unfortunately, even though
Netscape 4.x is obsolete, there is still a signifficant number of people
using it, mostly because they feel that doing so is rebelling against
Microsoft (please don't take that statement and turn it into a "I hate /
don't hate Microsoft" thread).

Netscape 6 / Mozilla is not backward compatible with Netscape 4.x's object
model and its proprietary extensions (example: document.layers). Because of
othis, a small, but signifficant number of sites are completely unusable in
this browser, despite some of the best support for W3C specs to date.
Because very few webmasters seem to know, or care, about the problem (I have
seriously read corporate documents for at least one corporation in which
they assumed Netscape 6 was just buggy beyond comprehension, and that no one
should ever use it, or support it), Netscape 6, and it's total support for
W3C specs, will not be a viable solution for at least one more year, if not
even longer.

Furthermore, the poor response by these webmasters to W3C's specs finally
being supported by Netscape 6, does not encourage Microsoft to break
backward compatibility with any of their proprietary extensions, in in favor
of total support of W3C's specs, in the way that NS6 / Mozilla has. In fact,
it's a pretty good reason to not do that, or else neither of the big two
browsers would render just about all websites that are out there properly,
and the entire World Wide Web would be in a state of grave crisis.

Don't get me wrong--I'm all for better document structure! I'm just
discouraged that I've waited so long, and no end to the waiting seems to be
in sight.

Daniel

Received on Thursday, 29 March 2001 14:44:44 UTC