Re: Validator errors

At 12:02 31-01-00 , Bless Terje wrote:
>Then I won't try to do so, but rather gently suggest you attempt
>to verify your assumption with empirical evidence gathered first
>hand from popular spots around the web.

Relevant here is the actual subset of documents being presented to a
validator, either those presumed to be nearly valid, or those learning in
the process.

It is well known that a vast number of documents are the obscene corruption
generated by products of certain rogue members of the W3C! And those
created by people using books published by the book publishing arm of a
certain rogue member of the W3C. They've already earned sufficient contempt
in their own right, and don't need more from us.

>BTW, If you get any more polite, well spoken, and articulate, I'll
>start putting Dear Sir at the beginnning of my replies. You're
>making me embarrased at my own vocabulary, grammar, 
>language skills, and common courtesy. :-|

Thank you, sir.

>Given a document which is labeled as "text/html" -- and the 
>absence of a DOCTYPE declaration that further specifies 
>what, uhm, "flavour" of HTML it contains -- what would be 
>the most reasonable assumption?

Being a validator, we can expect (hope) for valid input. As far as I know,
there are two cases where a document can be valid, without having a
DOCTYPE, HTML 2.0 and XHTML. Given that there are hardly any extant HTML
2.0-compliant documents (for quite pragmatic reasons), that pretty much
leaves us with XHTML.

>I would claim the most reasonable assumption would 
>be that it is in fact some form of HTML, 

Hmmm, am I missing something, or are you suggesting that the ~validator~,
when given a valid XHTML document (without a DOCTYPE), should process it as
HTML 4.0, and reject it as invalid? ~That just does not compute!~

>Recall that HTML is an Application of SGML whereas XHTML is an
>Application of XML. Why would I assume that something that was
>explicitly labeled as SGML, is really XML? If the label says
>"Fertilizer", why would I assume it is "Agent Orange"?

Oh, but US government officials assure us repeatedly that both are totally
safe, so such nuances of debate would surely belong in some other forum, as
does the perceived wisdom (or lack of it) of XML or HTML 4.01 design issues.

>`course, if you find an unmarked container that 
> might be Agent Orange, you damn sure arent 
> going to sprinkle it all over your lawn... :-)

Depending on where _your_ lawn is, it might well have been done (without
your consent) via aircraft from the other side of the globe... but again a
topic for another forum. 

A validator should play by the rules, presume good behavior, and be
courteous with less than ideal behavior. I find the alternative ~you
probably screwed-up, so we'll act accordingly~  distasteful, whether done
by a validator or by a prejudicial police official.

Safe computing,  /Harold

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Harold A. Driscoll                 mailto:Harold@Driscoll.Chi.IL.US
#include <std/disclaimer>                 http://Driscoll.Chi.IL.US

Received on Monday, 31 January 2000 14:19:58 UTC