On Jun 4, 5:00 am, Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 〈Computing Culture: What's Hacker?〉
>
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/whats_hacker.html > there is a substantial number of programers in this world, who truely
> enjoy programing, and all sorts of computing technologies, hardware
> and or software, digging into their innards. This group of people,
> some are computer scientists, some pro programers, some amature
> programers, very diverse. This is a group i belong to.
> Now, in this group of people, there is a sub-group, who share certain
> styles, personalities, propensities, in their activities or outlook in
> computing. This group is the “hacker” subculture i refer to.
> Note that there's no clear-delineated definition. But roughly: Richard
> Stallman generation at MIT, people who thrive with {perl, unix, C},
> fall into this group. It's hard to come up with even rough definition,
> but the best i can think of is those who enjoys the word “hacking” or
> “hacker”. e.g. they like to call a enjoyable programing session as
> hacking, they address respected peers as “hacker”, they simply enjoy
> all connotations afforded by that word, but they absolutely hate how
> journalists or laymen use the work “hack” to mean what they would call
> “crack”, and often go at lengths to speak against such usage.
> --------------------------------
> Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the term “hacker”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(term)
> here's a excerpt:
> «
> Hackeris a term that has been used to mean a variety of different
> things in
> computing. Depending on the context, the term could refer to a person
> in any
> one of several distinct (but not completely disjoint) communities and
> subcultures:[1]
> * A community of enthusiast computer programmers and systems
> designers,
> originated in the 1960s around the Massachusetts Institute of
> Technology's (MIT's) Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) and MIT
> Artificial
> Intelligence Laboratory.[2] This community is notable for
> launching the
> free software movement. The World Wide Web and the Internet
> itself are
> alsohackerartifacts.[3] The Request for Comments RFC 1392
> amplifies
> this meaning as "[a] person who delights in having an intimate
> understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and
> computer networks in particular." SeeHacker(programmer
> subculture).
> * The hobbyist home computing community, focusing on hardware in
> the late
> 1970s (e.g. the Homebrew Computer Club[4]) and on software
> (computer
> games,[5] software cracking, the demoscene) in the 1980s/1990s.
> The
> community included Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates and
> created
> the personalcomputing industry.[6] SeeHacker(hobbyist).
> * People committed to circumvention of computer security. This
> primarily
> concerns unauthorized remote computer break-ins via a
> communication
> networks such as the Internet (Black hats), but also includes
> those who
> debug or fix security problems (White hats), and the morally
> ambiguous
> Grey hats. SeeHacker(computer security).
> Today, mainstream usage of “hacker” mostly refers to computer
> criminals, due
> to the mass media usage of the word since the 1980s. …
> »
> --------------------------------
> Here, the first definition is in our context. Wikipedia has a
> dedicated article on that, here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture)
> , which elicits the Jargon File, and also has sections on “Ethics and
> Principles”, “Artifacts and Customs”.
> It is this group of people, i despise. More accurately: i despise
> their general style and outlook. I despite them. Fuck them. FUCK
> hackers. FUCK their hacking. Fuck their mothers. Scumbags.
> These hackers, a large percentage of them, also are what i call Tech
> Geekers. Here are related articles about tech geekers and hackers.
that term, here's more.
〈HTML5 Doctype, Validation, X-UA-Compatible, and Why Do I Hate
Hackers〉
http://xahlee.org/js/html5_validation_doctype.html
plain text version follows
------------------------------------
HTML5 Doctype, Validation, X-UA-Compatible, and Why Do I Hate
Hackers
Xah Lee, 2011-06-21
I'm giving up on html validation. Fuck the W3C. Fuck Google. Fuck
Apple. Fuck Microsoft. Fuck Firefox.
In the past 10 years, i've been quite strict and stern about html
validation. However, every little thing you do run into problems. In
[14]embedding YouTube videos, in [15]adding Google search widgets,
[16]adding Comment System, in embedding Twitter or Facebook widgets,
in adding ads, in mirroring documents from other sources (e.g.
[17]Emacs Lisp Manual.)…. Normally, it might take 5 min to do a job.
But with concern about correct HTML, it takes n hours to research and
find a solution that work across browsers yet still correct. See:
* [18]HTML Correctness and Validators
* [19]Google Earth KML Validation Fuckup
* [20]Programing: Google and Amazon Generates Invalid HTML
* [21]W3C HTML Validator Invalid
* [22]W3C HTML Validation Problem: p in li
* [23]How to Embed Video with Valid HTML
* [24]Programing: GNU Texinfo Problems; Invalid HTML
What's worse is that every [25]elite programing idiot (aka
“hacker”) will insist how validation is important while completely
ignoring reality.
Worse is that supposedly the “good guys” big companies {Google,
Apple} now peddle HTML5 because it would benefit THEMSELVES, while
completely ignore anything about validation. They — in particular the
“do no evil” Google — do not even pay lip service to validation.
(Google is trying to overtake the world and run over Microsoft with
the web. They cannot do that unless web tech supports traditional
desktop functionalities, that's why they need to push HTML5. Apple do
it for the same reason for their iPad iPhone money-cow.)
What's HTML5? It's a flying-fuck-in-your-face against a decade of
what W3C told us about what HTML should or should not be. HTML5 was
started by mostly Google and Apple, and in the beginning was sneered
by W3C, but W3C finally lost the power struggle and accepted HTML5.
You know? W3C is like United Nations. It was supposed to be this
neutral standard body. But in fact it really is just a masked face of
the powers. The distinction between good for the masses and the powers
behind group, gets thin over the years.
The situation is not much different than the 1990s where the
leading companies push new tech to gain market. (e.g. Netscape with
<blink>, <font>, javascript, cookies, etc.)
* [26]Internet History, Netscape, Dot Com, Code Rush
* [27]HTML, CSS, javascript, Web Tech and Browser Timeline
* [28]Cookies, Super Cookies, Your Privacy
The difference is that this time, the new stuff is sold as a
“standard”, and the [29]Tech Geekers went along smiling.
How to Make Your Site IE Compatible with X-UA-Compatible
What prompted me to write this rant on this topic AGAIN? Well, when
i view my site with Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), it shows a little ugly
icon of broken page in the url field. That broken page icon doesn't
show for Google, Apple, or Microsoft sites. So i took a bit to
investigate, which inevitably ends up several hours spent.
The matter is not simple as usual just like every html stuff.
Basically, if your site doesn't include a “X-UA-Compatible” metatag
such as <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=9">, than that
icon will show up, even if you use the “html5 doctype” <!doctype html>
and all your page is valid and pretty simple and doesn't use any css/
js/browser-sniffing/quirksmode or whatnot hack.
So my dilemma is, if my completely valid html4 site with extremely
simple markup, do i need to cave-in to whatever some company is doing
and add that “X-UA-Compatible” non-standard stupid extra little string
just so that IE won't show that little ugly broken-page icon?
So i also took a little time to check what other big sites do.
Here's Apple.com:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" lang="en-
US">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=utf-8" />
<meta name="Author" content="Apple Inc." />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=1024" />
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7,
IE=9" />
…
Here's google.com when served to IE9:
<!doctype html><html><head><meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible"
content="IE=8"><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">…
Here's microsoft.com:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://
www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html dir="ltr"
lang="en" xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:bi="urn:bi" xmlns:csp="urn:csp"><head><title>…</title><meta http-
equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE8" /><meta http-
equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
…
Here's Wikipedia, which does not use the “X-UA-Compatible” and the
broken-page icon shows:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://
www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html lang="en" dir="ltr" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>…</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
…
Note, Wikipedia is one of the few most trafficked site that uses
valid HTML/XHTML, in the few times i've checked since ~2005, but the
few times i've checked in the past 2 years they seem to have slacked.
The “X-UA-Compatible” was introduced with IE8. (in contrast to
typical tech geekers, i don't blame Microsoft for it) Here's
Microsoft's official doc about it: Defining Document Compatibility
(2011-04) @[30]Source msdn.microsoft.com
Here's a very short summary. Use one of:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=9">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=5">
What's the difference between “IE=7” and “IE=EmulateIE7”?
It's not clear to me from scanning that long article, but then i
found this Microsoft blog: Introducing IE=EmulateIE7 (2008-06-10) By
Jefferson Fletcher (IE product manager) of ieblog. @ [31]Source
blogs.msdn.com. Quote:
Content Value Details
IE=7 Display in IE7 Standards mode; Already supported in the IE8
Beta 1 release
IE=EmulateIE7 Display standards DOCTYPEs in IE7 Standards mode;
Display quirks DOCTYPEs in Quirks mode; Available through the IE June
Security Update for IE8 Beta 1
Complexer and Complexer
There is a mantra, widely accepted among web communities from unix
idiots throughout 1990s and even early 2000s.
It's from Unix's RFC (aka Really Fucking Common) #793, under the
section “Robustness Principle”: «be conservative in what you do, be
liberal in what you accept from others». Typically quoted as:
Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept.
— [32]Jon Postel
If you ever wonder why web tech is so fucked up, you have to thank
these idiots. (See: [33]The Nature of the Unix Philosophy)
[34]✍
* [35]HTML5 Video and Audio Tag
* [36]HTML6: Your JSON and SXML Simplified
* [37]HTML5 Canvas vs SVG
* [38]Using iframe to Embed Youtube Videos
* [39]Javascript Execution Order; HTML5 Asynchronous Javascript
* [40]HTML5 “figure” ＆ “figurecaption” Tags Browser Support
Xah
