[thelist] Re: "Take back the web"

MacEdition's CodeBitch codebitch at macedition.com
Thu Dec 13 11:21:43 CST 2001


In that UseNet thread, Arthur Hagen writes:

"However, all browsers
*ignore* tags they don't understand, and degrade pretty well, as long as
a minimum of care has been taken to not put critical information or
navigation in browser-specific tags (or javascript)."

But this is not true. Netscape 4 doesn't support the ABBR or ACRONYM tags,
but including on in a DIV with a CSS border style will crash Netscape 4.0x.
http://www.macedition.com/cb/testers/NNtest.html

And using the margin, float and clear CSS properties all together on an
image crash Netscape 4 below about version 4.75. (Any two of these styles is
fine).

As for your characterisation of Mr da Silva as clueful, I found this comment
of his bizarre: 

"I don't see them giving talks at Usenix, or at IETF presentations. They
haven't written any RFCs or IETF drafts, or technical papers. They don't
show up in security or technical papers, mailing lists, and the like. In
other words, I see no reason to grant them any authority."
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&newwindow=1&selm=9v76t9%242
toc%241%40citadel.in.taronga.com

While this might describe the webstandards.org people like Zeldman, it
doesn't describe the other folk with similar views about CSS and other
standards (if not the upgrade campaign), like, say Eric Meyer, Håkon Lie or
Bert Bos. The W3C seems to think these people are ok, or they wouldn't link
to them: http://www.w3.org/Style/
Or is Mr da Silva's point that only security and infrastructure people
matter? Spare me from supremacist engineers.

And this comment and others like it suggest that he misses the point
completely:

"Alterantively, they can write markup that doesn't overspecify the
presentation of the content."

But CSS is is all about taking the presentation out of the markup and
putting it into a stylesheet, usually a separate document.  This is what
webstandards.org is about, not the tag-soup he accuses them of.  While the
website being discussed in that thread might well be tag-soup, that doesn't
line up with the views of the Zeldman crowd. Lazy web designers ought not
dress up their inadaquecies as virtue by designing for one or two browsers
and hiding behind the Browser Upgrade Campaign.

The whole point about using CSS is that it removes presentational hints from
browsers that don't use them, like Lynx.  A site that uses CSS is much more
accessible to Lynx users than tag soup HTML. The only browsers that are
holding web authors back from using CSS more are Netscape 4 and Omniweb. Mr
da Silva is attributing to the members of webstandards.org opinions they do
not hold.

CodeBitch
http://www.macedition.com/cb/





> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 15:40:12 -0500
> From: Kevin Martin <evolt at brasscannon.net>
> To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
> Subject: [thelist] "Take Back the Web"
> Reply-To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
> 
> Regarding the "old browsers" thread, I think this Usenet posting is well
> worth your time.  Peter da Silva is one of the more clueful people I've
> met in my years on the Net...
> 
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&newwindow=1&frame=right&th=4e
> b2439eceea6316&seekm=9v35ue%241qve%241%40citadel.in.taronga.com#link2






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