Re: Proposal: :column pseudo-class

David Woolley et al,

David Woolley Wrote:
>> Let the user's be damned? Is that the attitude? I'm not saying, don't
>> give them the ability to brand, but don't give them the ability to
>> abuse.
>
> That's the attitude of commercial web browser developers. W3C has
> a more enlightened attitude, but it knows that if it deliberately
> ignores what businesses developing web pages *want* the browser
> developers will simply provide those features anyway.  (The
> original concept paper for HTML said colours had no place in HTML,
> but that didn't stop Netscape adding them.)

Precisely how is the "attitude" of the W3C--being apparently in opposition 
to progress, usability, and Web-based applications--"enlightened"?  After 
years of pondering the issue, I have failed to achieve that great wisdom 
that might allow me to understand why linked HTML and XHTML anchors should 
be without target attributes in their strict versions when those same markup 
languages can drop documents into ladderless wells via object elements; I 
have failed to see the wisdom in forcing otherwise strict documents to use a 
transitional DTD just so it can validly use target attributes; I have failed 
to see the wisdom in off-loading these very structural target attributes to 
CSS 3 as distant-future properties, leaving the Web not only with a 
structural/relational property classified as a style property, but also 
without an approved current specification of any kind to specify targets 
from strict documents as many legitimate, non-abusive Web *applications* 
(read: think beyond documents) might otherwise do for the sake of good 
usability.  Please--PLEASE--enlighten me.


Kind regards,

Brian Sexton

Received on Monday, 4 July 2005 03:43:25 UTC