Re: Transition (was Re: Capitalize across "span")

Todd Fahrner wrote at 09/02/98 7:44 pm

>That'd certainly set the henhouse acackle, eh? I hardly blame you for not
>doing this, but it does make me wonder whether HTML 4.0's "transitional"
>period won't, in fact, become a destination, particularly in view of the
>fact that XML is the first sort of Web-ready markup that key constituencies
>are embracing as a worthy document source format. If XML is source, then
>HTML is output: display. Why bother trying to preserve structure and
>semantics in a display format? All you need is DIVs, SPANs, tables, and
>forms. And support for "atomist" CSS - nothing too relative or
>inheritance-intensive, and preferably inline. And DHTML. Right? If you
>ditch all those troublesome structural/semantic tags, you can get passable
>results with CSS today in the 4.0 browsers. The transition may be nearing
>conclusion.
>
>These are rhetorical questions and assertions, but I suspect they're not
>too far off the mark in many minds. While W3C promotes CSS for the greater
>glory of HTML as a portable (smart) source format, leading implementors
>seem interested only in those bits that will make HTML more tractable as a
>"WYSIWYG" display format, limited to today's typical browsing paradigm
>(maximize and scroll) and possibly also today's typical printers (US
>letter, A4)


Ahem, I'd have to agree with some (most) of Todd's rhetoric, for the most 
part I'm interested in getting the "display/delivery" right for a 
specific group of browsers. The structure matters a lot less since it 
exists in its source form, often quite distinctly.

Perhaps an example of this is; recently we had some problems with certain 
characters displaying in some browsers and not other, the "×" was 
one, there was nothing wrong with our source to include "×" but at 
least some browsers wouldn't view it correctly. Therefore rather than 
adhere to the "correct" structure, we simply inserted "x". Problem solved.

Similarly with the problem I am facing with { text-transform: uppercase } 
I'll find a work around to fix the source (in this case a database), 
rather than rely on browser implementation.


-- Clive

Received on Monday, 9 February 1998 16:18:39 UTC