James Roberts

Your response is hereby formally rejected for breaking the 35-40 character
rule.

Try again.

<just kidding. Please, read on>


At 11:16 PM 1/23/01 +0100, James Roberts wrote:
>|Why?
>
>Look I'm new round here, and to HTML. But, 4.01 Trans seems to have been a
>requirement because 4.01 Strict broke browsers. No? And now there's XHTML
>1.0 Transitional, for similar reasons...


In a word, NO.

It is when you do *not* want to break browsers that you use the strict DTD
(don't take my word, check out the URL that started this whole thread).

So you have it exactly right - only backwards.

The transitional DTD is to create a "grace period" for web developers and
browser manufacturers to get up to speed. It WILL be dropped. The strict
DTD will not.

>
>
>|Why Not?
>
>Seems to me with HTML and derivatives we're in the position of the lost
>traveller who made the mistake of asking the Irish guy how to get to Dublin:
>'Sure and if'n I was you, I would not be starting from here'.  It's easy in
>retrospect to see many things that could have been done better. I've only
>just got into HTML, although I had my first dial-up internet mail account in
>1988 (this in the UK). That's because early HTML was a bit of a joke - I
>thought. Now it's powerful enough to be useable in a limited way. But
>backward compatibility is critical in some applications. The universities I
>know best in the UK all are using early Netscape (on Windows NT 4, already!)
>for various reasons best uninvestigated. The transitional spec seems to be
>helpful in writing code that displays adequately on earlier browsers, but
>has the odd bell and whistle on later ones. So - do they really disapprove?
>Dunno...

Well, speaking as an Irish guy (O'Lary) . . .

Early is a relative term. If you have NN 2 supporting the 4.x transitional
DTD I'll kiss your . . . well, you know. If you can get NN3 to support
anything except the very most rudimentary features of 4.x without choking,
I'll kiss your  . . . well, you know.

Then, I'll buy you a couple of pints, we'll get to be good friends, and
then in the traditional way of the Irish, we'll go out back of the Pub and
beat the crap out of each other for a hour or two, and then start the whole
process over again.

Ahhhhh, Culture. That is what America is lacking!

Fuzzy
<with tong planted so far in his cheek - it hurts>
______________________________________________________________
Captain F.M. O'Lary
webmaster(at)canopy.net
Another year ends.
All targets met. All systems working. All customers satisfied.
All staff eagerly enthusiastic. All pigs fed and ready to fly.
------------------------------------------------------------------

HTML: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA