Advocacy By The Clueless Considered Even More Harmful

On Tue, 1 May 2001, Aaron Swartz wrote:

> See also the recent ALA article, "Forgiving Browsers Considered Harmful":
>     http://www.alistapart.com/stories/forgiving/

Oh yes.  Gems like this:

: I told [a bunch of high school students] that we'd be marking up our
: documents using commands inside of < and > signs [...]  

and this:

: I then launched into the basic elements: <html>, <head>, <title>,
: and <body>. [...] I had just gotten through the <b> and <i> tags 

and this:

: I had to find a way to introduce style sheets in the context of the
: tags they'd learned

and, of course, this:

: When I was helping answer students' questions about how to achieve
: specific effects

Specific Effects?  Inside of < and > signs?  Commands?

Tag Soup is first and foremost a mentality.  Browsers written with
that mentality as a target are not "forgiving".  They are enabling.
And when high school students are introduced to the wonders of
specific effects by commands inside of < and > signs, one thing is for
sure.

Tag Soup is Alive and Well.



Arjun

Received on Friday, 15 June 2001 18:43:00 UTC