RE: XHTML Applications and XML Processors [was Re: xhtml 2.0 noscript]

On Wed, 2 Aug 2006, John Foliot - WATS.ca wrote:
> Ian Hickson wrote:
> > 
> > There is nothing forcing ATs from having to wait for the entire page 
> > to have completed rendering. If they do, then that is a bug in those 
> > systems.
> 
> No, it is not a bug, it is the way that those systems *must* operate - 
> it must capture *everything* so that it can further process the data and 
> output it to it's "specialized" format - speech.

This is incorrect; I know of at least one aural browser (Opera) that is 
quite capable of rendering to audio incrementally. I understand Emacsspeak 
is also quite capable of this. So clearly it is simply a bug in the 
systems that you refer to.

But that's not the point. *Even if what you said were true*, it doesn't 
have to apply to non-speech-based browsers.


> Content authors (and AJAX application developers) are free to understand 
> and work with this, or ignore it and do whatever they want.  Good luck 
> selling your AJAX application to any entity that needs to purchase 
> according to Section 508 requirements, or other legislated equal-access 
> requirements.  You wanna be cool, or do you want to make money?

There's no reason you can't do both. (My employer is one of the leaders in 
this field and is quite profitable.)


> To put this thread somewhat back on track (Subject: RE: XHTML 
> Applications and XML Processors [was Re: xhtml 2.0 noscript]), it's 
> origins are rooted in a discussion about XHTML2 - the future, not the 
> here (or near) and now, where all kinds of "nifty" but totally 
> inaccessible AJAX widgets are emerging, cranked out by developers with 
> no concept or regard for universal accessibility.  So be it.  Cruft 
> sinks, quality rises...

It should be quite clear from my work that I do not necessarily agree with 
the assumption that XHTML2 is the future. But that's another story. :-)

It certainly won't be the future if it requires Web pages to be slower. 
Browsers battle over every last millisecond of render time, waiting until 
load completion isn't even remotely an option.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Thursday, 3 August 2006 06:29:22 UTC