Re: draft-ietf-html-style-00.txt & class as a general selector

<<I'm not going to say anything more on this point for a while, unless
seriously provoked>>

   From: Glenn Adams <glenn@stonehand.com>
|
|   That's the trouble.  You are attempting language design based on your
|   speculations about perceived needs.  As I have said very early in these
|   threads, one shouldn't design compromise into a language (or anything
|   else) unless one had either good empirical data on hand or clear historical
|   compability requirements.
---

I don't believe the STYLE attribute represents "designing compromise
into the language".  I think it is very natural to allow styling
information to be recorded in in the same format either in-situ,
indirectly through a local stylesheet, indirectly through a referenced
stylesheet, or externally through the reader's browser.  This seems
like reasonably elegant mechanism to me.  I understand it fails to
implement the policy you prefer, but taken just as mechanism I think it
is no less elegant and no less supportable than the restricted version
you suggest.

|			  I don't believe that historical requirements
|   can be invoked here so we're left with empirical requirements for which
|   we have no real data.  Given this fact (and I'd challenge anyone to
|   effectively dispute this as a fact) and given that the STYLE attribute
|   as has been discussed violates basic principles on at least two counts:
|   (1) don't provide multiple ways of saying the same thing when one will
|   suffice;
---

Actually, I don't think it provides "another way of saying the same
thing", it simply allows the recording of the same styling information
in an additional place; since the information is already allowed to be
in an open sequence of places, I don't think the addition pollutes
the model.

|    and (2) don't mix form and content,

It simply allows recording the form information by value rather than by
name.  This is a notational convenience.  Since the in-situ form is
mechanically transformable to the stylesheet form and back, I claim they
are equivalent from a "separation of form and content" point of view.

---
|					 I'd suggest that the authors
|   of DRAFT-IETF-HTML-STYLE-00.TXT remove or modify their proposed use of
|   a STYLE attribute as a binding mechanism.  A modification which would
|   be acceptable to me is to specify the declared value of the STYLE
|   attribute to be either NAME or NAMES.
---

I, obviously, suggest that the authors of the the draft leave STYLE as
it is or indicate that the content can either be a value in the syntax
of whatever style notation is in effect or be a name resolvable by the
style mechanism.

scott

--
scott preece
motorola/mcg urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
phone:	217-384-8589			  fax:	217-384-8550
internet mail:	preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com

Received on Friday, 8 December 1995 11:28:54 UTC