Re: Todo list (was: sgml-lib/REC-xhtml1-20000126/xhtml1-transitional.dtd)

Bertilo Wennergren <bertilow@gmx.net> wrote:

>Terje Bless:
>
>>>- My favourite browser is Netscape 3, therefore the internal
>>>links don't work (missing <a name=...> for all id=...).  All styles
>>>are of course silently ignored (incl. class="none").
>
>>The links will probably not work in Netscape 4.x either (at least it
>>used to have problems with anything but <a name=""></a>), but that
>>doesn't really worry me greatly. There are limits to how broken a
>>browser can be before I stop jumping through hoops for it; and Netscape
>>4.x has long since passed that limit. Sorry.
>
>Hmmm... I hope I haven't misunderstood what this is about.

Hmm. Perhaps.

It's not that this particular behaviour of Netscape's is so badly broken;
it's that the browser in general is so badly broken that I now have a
policy of doing zero hoop-jumping if an issue _only_ affects Netscape 4.x.

I hope that distinction makes sense?


>>It is unfortunate that this results in broken internal links for you of
>>course, but we have to draw the line somewhere.
>
>Indeed. But following the relevante recommendations and notes from the
>W3C would seem to fall well on the right side of that line.

That depends. The relevant Recommendations clearly intend for the "id"
attributes to fill the role <a name=""></a> used to -- and is a more
comprehensive and better design to boot -- and there is a strong reason to
believe that Netscape 4.x is the brunt of the reason for various
compatibility guidelines that suggest using <a name=""></a>.

In light of this, following these compatibility guidelines act as a
self-fulfilling prophecy; not mention that it makes maintenance
significantly harder.

I do regret that it makes internal links non-functional for people who for
one reason or another is stuck with Netscape 4.x though. While I won't
change my opinion on this in general -- given what the failure mode is --
if there are any places in which it has a more severe failure mode I may
entertain the idea of adding supplementary <a name=""></a> tags for those
cases. Specific reports would be appreciated.


Thanks for the feedback on this.


-- 
"Temper Temper! Mr. Dre? Mr. NWA? Mr. AK, comin´
 straight outta Compton and y'all better make way?"            -- eminem

Received on Sunday, 1 December 2002 19:01:32 UTC