Re: Parsing everything

Etan,

Thanks for the drugs. ;-)

As for the threads, I find them very uncompelling.
While junk happens, catching errors does reduce them. I don't understand
the claim that it doesn't.

An undercurrent in the thread is that CSS errors are always harmless,
being just styling...
That may be largely true but not always true. Certainly CSS bugs can
change the meaning of
text (imagine the text color not being set, so that it ends up matching
the background color, perhaps
on words that are emphasized <em>NOT</em> for example) and of course
passing erroneous text thru is a doorway for security problems, even in
CSS... @import url(javascript:alert('JavaScript is executed')); 

Although rejecting junk deprives the reader of partial review, it
reduces the likelihood that the reader receives junk or something
misleading or damaging, and not rejecting it (with an error message)
deprives the author from the opportunity to fix it.

We can agree to disagree. Thanks for the pointers to the threads.

Tex

Etan Wexler wrote:
> 
> Tex Texin wrote to <mailto:www-international@w3.org>,
> <mailto:w3c-css-wg@w3.org>, <mailto:w3c-i18n-ig@w3.org>, and
> <mailto:www-style@w3.org> on 5 December 2003 in "Re: UTF-8 signature /
> BOM in CSS" (<mid:3FD1453D.3252B143@i18nguy.com>):
> 
> > I would be happy for either the brain-altering meds
> 
>    http://www.fluoxetine.com/
>    http://www.abilify.com/
> 
> Cheers. (And goodbye, refractory depression!)
> 
> > or some justification.
> 
> I won't repeat Ian Hickson's arguments or ask him to do so. The
> discussion is archived. What I consider Ian's salient points are in the
> following messages.
> 
>    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Mar/0028.html
>    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Feb/0199.html
>    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Feb/0254.html
>    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Feb/0278.html
> 
> In summary:
> 
> Junk happens. Declaring it unparsable does not eliminate it and
> probably won't significantly reduce it.
> 
> If we don't specify the error handling for every case, agents will vary
> in their error handling, leaving authors with headaches and questions.
> The closest thing to uniformity will be the reverse engineering of the
> market leader's behavior.
> 
> Even when a wayward author or agent has created and published junk,
> something is intended by it. Rejecting the junk altogether deprives the
> reader/consumer of what could be at least partial interpretation.
> 
> --
> Etan Wexler.
> "Meow": me, ow.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------
Tex Texin   cell: +1 781 789 1898   mailto:Tex@XenCraft.com
Xen Master                          http://www.i18nGuy.com
                         
XenCraft		            http://www.XenCraft.com
Making e-Business Work Around the World
-------------------------------------------------------------

Received on Sunday, 7 December 2003 00:23:10 UTC