[thelist] clear form code

Luther, Ron Ron.Luther at hp.com
Tue Mar 21 08:32:13 CST 2006


John Handelaar noted (and although it wasn't specifically directed 
at me it probably should have been):

>>WHOA, cowboy.
>>You're welcome to start flinging sarcasm around 


Hi John,


First of all .... Apologies all around for yesterday's bit of 
sarcastic flamebait.  That was a bit over the top. 

Sorry for the noise.


>>Thelist's purpose may be many things, but encouraging people to do 
>>something which the spec clearly says is unsupported is absolutely 
>>not one of them.

The list is also about attempting to help people when they are stuck 
with problems. Even if those are messy problems.


>>The spec is clear.  You cannot rely on any browser respecting your 
>>intended rendering if you leave everything unchecked.

Noted and agreed. [Also noted is the fact that the spec is not clear 
on everything, not all-encompassing [this seems to be one gap for 
example], and not uniformly, completely, and/or accurately implemented 
in all user agents.]


>>We are about best practice.  We are about learning.

+1!  ;-)

And thus my confusion over answering a question of "I need to do this 
and the client won't allow that" with "get a bigger clue hammer and 
beat more sense into the client until she allows that - then done, QED".

The hack I suggested, (and yes it is certainly a hack), would be one 
solution when the 'no default' requirement is non-negotiable.  I was 
hoping for some creative alternatives.  None were proposed that didn't 
violate the 'no default' requirement.

No one said "well, why not use three hyperlinks - one to give that $1 
to basketball, one to football, one to lacrosse".  That would be a 
reasonable alternative approach that would satisfy the requirements 
(and the specs) and work around the radio button hubbub.

No one said "do it in Flash" ... (just kidding).  ;-)

There are always multiple approaches to any problem, and by discussing 
them here we (sometimes) reach consensus on what we think _today's_ 
'best practice' ought to be.

That kind of creative problem solving didn't happen with this thread. 
Maybe next time.


>>Not telling a questioner that this, oftentimes, simply won't work 
>>is anathema to why we all started this in the first place.

Agreed.  But 'oftentimes, simply won't work' is a bit stronger statement

than 'not guaranteed to work forever' and implies that there are
numerous 
examples where that thing doesn't work today.  If we're going to say
there 
is a risk to doing something a certain way it would be nice to quantify 
that risk or provide examples of where it falls over.  That kind of
input 
would help folks decide whether to use or not use a specific technique.


Peace Out & Done,

RonL.



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