[thelist] Discussing XHTML and ROI with your "boss"

Mark Howells webdev at mountain.ch
Fri Aug 16 08:46:15 CDT 2002


>> So, in your scenario, how would you handle the 29 different types of web
>> browser that have visited my website in the past year? Have 29 different
>> templates containing the same content (but different mangled code), or one
>> XHTML template that they can all parse perfectly?
>
> But they can't all parse it perfectly.  I'm dealing with the realities
> of today.  The realities are that *most* can display things more or less
> the intended way, but we operate with the understanding that no two
> browsers are going to behave exactly the same way all the time.  This
> WILL be the case even when everyone supports 'standards' 100%, because
> there'll still be differences from different vendors.

They can all *parse* it perfectly -- what they do with it afterwards, with
regard to layout -- doesn't come under the scope of XHTML. Make a page with
just valid XHTML and you'll see that all of the browsers I mentioned will
render it in a clear, logical, structured way. (Unless you're using tables
for layout, in which case they will all mangle it in one way or another.)

Your comment that you accept a difference in layout -- perhaps I
misunderstood the earlier comments about your reticence in using valid
markup.

>>> If someone else is trying to screen-scrape me, and can't easily parse stuff
>>> because it's not XHTML, tough luck
>>
>> The problem with your argument there is that the "... someone else ..." who
>> is "... trying to screen-scrape ..." you will be the browser of your
>> visitor, which is trying to parse the non-standard code that you are using.
>> It'll read your code, try and make the best attempt at displaying it against
>> it's internal processing SGML "rule set" and then, probably, show a
>> sub-standard result.
>
> Again, you're assuming that someone's browser will digest ONLY *100%*
> valid-to-the-spec-published-on-this-day-and-nothing-else code.  That's
> not the case, and I wholeheartedly believe it never will be.

Nor do I -- "digesting" and "correctly rendering" are two wholly separate
and distinct actions. The browsers of today and the future will always be
able to "digest" malformed markup -- whether they render content using this
markup in a legible or structured way is another matter entirely.

Regards
Mark Howells
<http://www.mark.ac/evl/>




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