In seach of Holy Grail...
Ken Loomis
In my quest for validation I have been unable to achieve the results I
want with validation in this instance.
Here's the HTML:
<center>
<Table border=1 width="90%" cellpadding="5" bgcolor="#C0C0C0">
<TR><TD align=center width="25%"><A HREF="contact.htm">Contact IT
Resources </A></TD >
<TD align=center width="25%"><A HREF="svs.htm">Featured
services</A></TD><TD align=center width="25%"><A
HREF="affiliat.htm">Affiliations</A></TD><TD align=center
width="25%"><A HREF="history.htm">Our history</A></TD>
</table></center>
What the validator doesn't like is the BGColor for the table and cell
width expressed as a %. I get the result I am looking for with IE
versions 2 and 3. It is a presentation of links in a bordered row of
rectangles (the table) with a grey background. Each cell is the same
size. When I use pixels for size it looks differently in the
different browsers. Percentages work. Also the background color of
the table works in my browsers, but I'm afraid it won't in others.
(Plus I want to put that little valid check on the page.)
Is there a way to achieve this effect in valid HTML 3.2?
Ken Loomis
Chris Burch
On Tue, 02 Dec 1997 15:24:50 GMT, klo...@spamx.IT-Resources.com (Ken
Loomis) diligently typed:
>:In my quest for validation I have been unable to achieve the results I
>:want with validation in this instance.
[invalid HTML3.2 & desired effect snipped]
>:Is there a way to achieve this effect in valid HTML 3.2?
1. Ugh. Having said that,
2. Part of knowing how to use a tool is knowing that tool's
limitations. e.g. "We use hammers to pound in nails; we do not use
hammers to open jars." or "We use HTML to give documents logical
structure in an open, portable manner; we do not use HTML for desktop
publishing."
HTH,
Chris
--
"The concept of the web is of universal readership. If you publish a
document on the web, it is important that anyone who has access to it
can read it and link to it."
- Tim Berners-Lee
http://www.eit.com/old/www.lists/www-talk.1991/0010.html
Alan J. Flavell
On Tue, 2 Dec 1997, Ken Loomis wrote:
> What the validator doesn't like is the BGColor for the table and cell
> width expressed as a %.
..
> Is there a way to achieve this effect in valid HTML 3.2?
No, Sir, there isn't. Let me ask (and answer) another question: is
there a way to achieve this reliably with the popular browsers that
were available at the time? Answer: no, because one browser treats
column percentages as a percentage of table width, while another
treats it as a percentage of window width.
Why do you suppose HTML3.2 omitted this otherwise plausible option?
HTML was designed to document the HTML that was supported reliably
across the popular browsers available at that time. QED.
Warren Steel
Ken Loomis wrote:
> In my quest for validation I have been unable to achieve the results I
> want with validation in this instance.
> <center>
> <Table border=1 width="90%" cellpadding="5" bgcolor="#C0C0C0">
> <TR><TD align=center width="25%"><A HREF="contact.htm">Contact IT
> Resources </A></TD >
> <TD align=center width="25%"><A HREF="svs.htm">Featured
> services</A></TD><TD align=center width="25%"><A
> HREF="affiliat.htm">Affiliations</A></TD><TD align=center
> width="25%"><A HREF="history.htm">Our history</A></TD>
> </table></center>
For a simple toolbar I'd be tempted to use:
<P>
[ <A HREF="contact.htm">Contact IT Resources </A> |
<A HREF="svs.htm">Featured services</A> |
<A HREF="affiliat.htm">Affiliations</A> |
<A HREF="history.htm">Our history</A> ]
</P>
> What the validator doesn't like is the BGColor for the table and cell
> width expressed as a %.
That's because neither is valid in HTML 3.2, for good
reasons. Neither was uniformly implemented in early 1996,
and neither is usably implemented today. For the same
reason that if you set BODY BGCOLOR, you *must* also set
the TEXT, LINK and VLINK attributes, to avoid conflict
with user settings, you would need TEXT, LINK, and VLINK
attributes to "insure" your TD BGCOLOR against illegibility.
And nobody implements these attributes for TD or TABLE.
In fact, their obsolete, and deprecated in HTML 4.0.
As for TD WIDTH="nn%" I believe it's been pointed out
to you that these are interpreted with vast differences
between IE and NN.
> I get the result I am looking for with IE
> versions 2 and 3. It is a presentation of links in a bordered row of
> rectangles (the table) with a grey background. Each cell is the same
> size. When I use pixels for size it looks differently in the
> different browsers. Percentages work. Also the background color of
> the table works in my browsers, but I'm afraid it won't in others.
> (Plus I want to put that little valid check on the page.)
> Is there a way to achieve this effect in valid HTML 3.2?
If you mean "is there a way to convey this essential
information?" the answer is yes. If you mean a specific
visual effect, the answer is no. And not in invalid HTML 3.2
either.
--
Warren Steel mu...@olemiss.edu
Department of Music University of Mississippi
URL: http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/
Dan McGarry
In article <348435ff...@spool.cs.wisc.edu>, cbu...@madison.k12.wi.us (Chris Burch) writes:
|> On Tue, 02 Dec 1997 15:24:50 GMT, klo...@spamx.IT-Resources.com (Ken
|> Loomis) diligently typed:
|>
|> >:In my quest for validation I have been unable to achieve the results I
|> >:want with validation in this instance.
|>
|> [invalid HTML3.2 & desired effect snipped]
|>
|> >:Is there a way to achieve this effect in valid HTML 3.2?
|>
|> 1. Ugh. Having said that,
|> 2. Part of knowing how to use a tool is knowing that tool's
|> limitations. e.g. "We use hammers to pound in nails; we do not use
|> hammers to open jars." or "We use HTML to give documents logical
|> structure in an open, portable manner; we do not use HTML for desktop
|> publishing."
Hammers make exceptional jar openers. They are faster and work on
nearly all shapes and sizes of bottle. Now, if re-use is of particular
importance to you, or if you wish to do anything constructive with the
contents, well.... Suffice it to say the hammer's ability to
do the job must be balanced against other considerations.
As to all that HTML stuff: Whatever.... <grin>
Seriously, I think a number of "real-world" scenario types who claim
that something must be used because it works -- I think they just
don't see the (literal and figurative) repercussion of opening that
jar with a hammer.
Using HTML for layout is simply use of an inappropriate tool.
Which is not to say that, given the limited number of options
available to a developer of eye-candy sites, it cannot be made
to bend slightly in the direction of creating an aesthetically
pleasing setting for the transmission of content.
My personal wish is that authors of Web content could exchange
the word "juxtaposition" for "position". It's dead easy to place
things in proximity to one another, to establish the precedence
of elements on a web document. I think the "designer" who demands
more is not clear enough on what's available. White space can
be created in a number of inventive ways. The amount of
inventiveness that can be tapped by floating objects, instead
of positioning them, would be enough to overwhelm a number
of our designer friends.
--
Dan McGarry
Steve Davis
Dan McGarry wrote:
> Seriously, I think a number of "real-world" scenario types who claim
> that something must be used because it works -- I think they just
> don't see the (literal and figurative) repercussion of opening that
> jar with a hammer.
...or maybe many of them do?
> Using HTML for layout is simply use of an inappropriate tool.
...and the truly effective alternative is... what?
> Which is not to say that, given the limited number of options
> available to a developer of eye-candy sites, ...
Now that was an "attitoodinal" give-away! Layout *is* content. How many times...!!
> ....it cannot be made
> to bend slightly in the direction of creating an aesthetically
> pleasing setting for the transmission of content.
Agck! Patently not true. Look around you.
> My personal wish is that authors of Web content could exchange
> the word "juxtaposition" for "position". It's dead easy to place
> things in proximity to one another, to establish the precedence
> of elements on a web document. I think the "designer" who demands
> more is not clear enough on what's available. ...
Or maybe you are not clear enough on what a designer actually does?
> ... White space can
> be created in a number of inventive ways. The amount of
> inventiveness that can be tapped by floating objects, instead
> of positioning them, would be enough to overwhelm a number
> of our designer friends.
I think, perhaps, not too many of them!
Essentially, Dan, I condone your intent but disagree entirely with your advice.
Steve Davis
Alan J. Flavell
On Wed, 3 Dec 1997, Steve Davis wrote:
> > Using HTML for layout is simply use of an inappropriate tool.
>
> ...and the truly effective alternative is... what?
Learn what's feasible, and exploit it. Give up the attitude that
they already know what it is that they simply must put onto the screen
of an unknown browsing situation; study the characteristics of this
relatively new medium and then set about exploiting its strengths,
instead of attacking its weaknesses.
> Or maybe you are not clear enough on what a designer actually does?
Maybe these designers are not clear enough on what an HTML rendering
agent actually does?
Jon A. Cruz
Steve Davis wrote:
>
> Dan McGarry wrote:
>
> > Seriously, I think a number of "real-world" scenario types who claim
> > that something must be used because it works -- I think they just
> > don't see the (literal and figurative) repercussion of opening that
> > jar with a hammer.
>
> ...or maybe many of them do?
>
>
> ...and the truly effective alternative is... what?
Adobe PDF
Dan McGarry
In article <34858A4C...@dircon.co.uk>, Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
|> Dan McGarry wrote:
|>
|> > Seriously, I think a number of "real-world" scenario types who claim
|> > that something must be used because it works -- I think they just
|> > don't see the (literal and figurative) repercussion of opening that
|> > jar with a hammer.
|>
|> ...or maybe many of them do?
Rhetoric is nice. Please provide the facts that lead you to respond with
such a statement.
|> > Using HTML for layout is simply use of an inappropriate tool.
|>
|> ...and the truly effective alternative is... what?
|>
|> > Which is not to say that, given the limited number of options
|> > available to a developer of eye-candy sites, ...
|>
|> Now that was an "attitoodinal" give-away! Layout *is* content. How many times...!!
Actually, I was using that term in a very non-judgemental way. I too
create eye-candy on sites that call for it.
(see http://www2.moodindigo.com/dreams/ for an example)
And as for your "layout *is* content" assertion: I have responded to that
in another thread. Please read it and respond there.
|> > ....it cannot be made
|> > to bend slightly in the direction of creating an aesthetically
|> > pleasing setting for the transmission of content.
|>
|> Agck! Patently not true. Look around you.
At what? Please, if you're going say that something is self-evident,
you could at least pluck a single example from the multitude that
apparently surround you.
|> > My personal wish is that authors of Web content could exchange
|> > the word "juxtaposition" for "position". It's dead easy to place
|> > things in proximity to one another, to establish the precedence
|> > of elements on a web document. I think the "designer" who demands
|> > more is not clear enough on what's available. ...
|>
|> Or maybe you are not clear enough on what a designer actually does?
Look Steve, it's one thing to disagree. Fine and dandy. But please stop
implying that those who disagree with you are not designers! This is the
second time you've done so, and the second time I've been forced to
remind you that I work full-time as a designer of web material.
I don't care if you don't like my ideas. I don't even care if you don't
like my designs. I do take umbrage to the fact that you assume I don't
get paid well to do what I do, that perhaps I have never studied art and
design, and that my opinion might not come from personal experience, from the
application of the very ideas you are so quick to discard.
I would be more than happy to discuss aesthetics and transmission of
meaning in ciwa.site-design. It's something that's had my attention
for quite some time.
|> > ... White space can
|> > be created in a number of inventive ways. The amount of
|> > inventiveness that can be tapped by floating objects, instead
|> > of positioning them, would be enough to overwhelm a number
|> > of our designer friends.
|>
|> I think, perhaps, not too many of them!
Okay, now it's my turn to abuse a term. I should have placed "designer"
in inverted commas. I was referring to the all-too-vocal number of
people who call themselves designers as quickly as they call others purists.
|> Essentially, Dan, I condone your intent but disagree entirely with your advice.
That's your prerogative. In Usenet the custom is to do so by providing
examples framed in a compelling manner so that others too can be persuaded.
See my reply to another of your posts for more. I'll put my follow-ups there.
--
Dan McGarry
Gil Harvey
On 3 Dec 1997 18:48:04 GMT, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry)
wrote:
>Actually, I was using that term in a very non-judgemental way. I too
>create eye-candy on sites that call for it.
>
>(see http://www2.moodindigo.com/dreams/ for an example)
Oh, That's the site you posted as your example. I
showed up using the machine with the small (14") monitor,
NN4.0, res. set to 640X480 - the page did NOT fit, so I
figured I'd have to scroll, hmm what's this no scroll bars?
_YOU_ decided I didn't need to scroll!! If this is what you
create, no thanks!
>Look Steve, it's one thing to disagree. Fine and dandy. But please stop
>implying that those who disagree with you are not designers! This is the
>second time you've done so, and the second time I've been forced to
>remind you that I work full-time as a designer of web material.
"Working" as a designer of web material? Good Luck!
Jan Roland Eriksson
On Wed, 03 Dec 1997 22:28:14 GMT, G...@Old-Hippy.com (Gil
Harvey) wrote:
> "Working" as a designer of web material? Good Luck!
It's even more fun to check it with Opera 3.0b9
I get a popup dialog saying...
"The remote server refuses to perform the request"
[OK]
Whatever that means :-)
--
Jan Roland Eriksson - rex.b...@mbox300.swipnet.se
URL - http://home2.swipnet.se/%7Ew-20547/
Steve Davis
THIS IS A FLAME. Read only in that context.
Dan McGarry inadvisedly wrote:
>
> In article <34858A4C...@dircon.co.uk>, Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
> |> Dan McGarry wrote:
> |>
> |> > Seriously, I think a number of "real-world" scenario types who claim
> |> > that something must be used because it works -- I think they just
> |> > don't see the (literal and figurative) repercussion of opening that
> |> > jar with a hammer.
> |>
> |> ...or maybe many of them do?
>
> Rhetoric is nice. Please provide the facts that lead you to respond with
> such a statement.
Listen, Dan. *Maybe* many of them do. Is your prejudice factual? *Perhaps*
there is justification in some alternative argument. That's what I said. What
'facts' could I offer you to support the idea that you are not necessarily
king of all you survey?
> |> > Using HTML for layout is simply use of an inappropriate tool.
> |>
> |> ...and the truly effective alternative is... what?
> |>
> |> > Which is not to say that, given the limited number of options
> |> > available to a developer of eye-candy sites, ...
> |>
> |> Now that was an "attitoodinal" give-away! Layout *is* content. How many times...!!
>
> Actually, I was using that term in a very non-judgemental way. I too
> create eye-candy on sites that call for it.
>
> (see http://www2.moodindigo.com/dreams/ for an example)
Guess what? 403. Tried index.htm, index.html, default.htm, default.html. Gave
up. All 404s. Reader access? Hunh! Forget it.
> And as for your "layout *is* content" assertion: I have responded to that
> in another thread. Please read it and respond there.
I did.
> |> > ....it cannot be made
> |> > to bend slightly in the direction of creating an aesthetically
> |> > pleasing setting for the transmission of content.
> |>
> |> Agck! Patently not true. Look around you.
>
> At what? Please, if you're going say that something is self-evident,
> you could at least pluck a single example from the multitude that
> apparently surround you.
Pleasing *design*. Not necessarily valid. Not necessarily fast.
Try:
http://www.apple.com/
http://www.elsop.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/
http://www.gamelan.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
http://www.hwg.org/
http://www.java.motiv.co.uk/
http://www.dallascowboys.com/
etc., etc., etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, ETC.
and the home run:
...now tell me where I said that 'layout' had to be invalid html???
> |> > My personal wish is that authors of Web content could exchange
> |> > the word "juxtaposition" for "position". It's dead easy to place
> |> > things in proximity to one another, to establish the precedence
> |> > of elements on a web document. I think the "designer" who demands
> |> > more is not clear enough on what's available. ...
> |>
> |> Or maybe you are not clear enough on what a designer actually does?
>
> Look Steve, it's one thing to disagree. Fine and dandy. But please stop
> implying that those who disagree with you are not designers!
Again. Where did I say that? I don't believe this, and I don't believe that
this belief has been implied in *any* of my posts. The reason that I suggested
that you may not understand the role of the designer was what I perceived to
be a naive argument over position/juxtaposition and its supposed equivalence
to proximity.
> This is the
> second time you've done so, and the second time I've been forced to
> remind you that I work full-time as a designer of web material.
Oh really.
> I don't care if you don't like my ideas.
Good.
> I don't even care if you don't
> like my designs.
Bully for you.
> I do take umbrage to the fact that you assume I don't
> get paid well to do what I do,
Oh, right. I assume that you have some insight that I do assume this? Oh
share, share.
> that perhaps I have never studied art and
> design,
*maybe* (remember that word?) *maybe* it would be worthwhile.
> and that my opinion might not come from personal experience, from the
> application of the very ideas you are so quick to discard.
Not quick. As you say, you've been posting awhile.
> I would be more than happy to discuss aesthetics and transmission of
> meaning in ciwa.site-design. It's something that's had my attention
> for quite some time.
>
> |> > ... White space can
> |> > be created in a number of inventive ways. The amount of
> |> > inventiveness that can be tapped by floating objects, instead
> |> > of positioning them, would be enough to overwhelm a number
> |> > of our designer friends.
> |>
> |> I think, perhaps, not too many of them!
>
> Okay, now it's my turn to abuse a term. I should have placed "designer"
> in inverted commas.
You did earlier. Why the stategy change?
> I was referring to the all-too-vocal number of
> people who call themselves designers as quickly as they call others purists.
And so you generalise, pigeonhole, and tar all these 'groups' with the same
brush, do you?
> |> Essentially, Dan, I condone your intent but disagree entirely with your advice.
>
> That's your prerogative. In Usenet the custom is to do so by providing
> examples framed in a compelling manner so that others too can be persuaded.
You have failed on that front, IMO.
Sourly yours,
Steve Davis
Arjun Ray
In <34858A4C...@dircon.co.uk>,
Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
| Dan McGarry wrote:
|
| > Seriously, I think a number of "real-world" scenario types who claim
| > that something must be used because it works -- I think they just
| > don't see the (literal and figurative) repercussion of opening that
| > jar with a hammer.
|
| ...or maybe many of them do?
Not many. Perhaps a few. The Dejanews archive offers a lot of evidence
for this. The basic phenomenon is the combination of a low entry bar
and a media-fueled frenzy convincing many soi-disant designers that
they need not remedy their ignorance. (Some even manage to convince
themselves that they're knowledgeable.) The subtext of the "if it
works" argument is the suppression of any reason to ask and any reason
to know "why?" -- and of course "what if it breaks?" is not only
tomorrow's problem but also an opportunity to present the client with
another bill. Call it the political economy of cottage industry.
| > Using HTML for layout is simply use of an inappropriate tool.
|
| ...and the truly effective alternative is... what?
The Right Tool For The Job. PDF. Postscript. There are others. HTTP
delivers them all.
Let's hope your use of "effective" hasn't begged a question.
:ar
Veronica Karlsson
Steve Davis wrote:
>
> Dan McGarry wrote:
> > ....it cannot be made
> > to bend slightly in the direction of creating an aesthetically
> > pleasing setting for the transmission of content.
>
> Agck! Patently not true. Look around you.
>
I look, and find this:
http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/vk/pics/rubbish/layout.dum.gif
And this:
http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/vk/pics/rubbish/horrible.dum.gif
And this:
http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/vk/pics/rubbish/jcurtis.dum.gif
(please note that I don't have to look very hard)
--
:)
Irebavpn Xneyffba
( r93...@fz.yhgu.fr uggc://jjj.yhqq.yhgu.fr/~ix/ )
Dan McGarry
In article <34860BFD...@dircon.co.uk>, Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
|> THIS IS A FLAME. Read only in that context.
|>
|> Dan McGarry wrote:
|> >
|> > In article <34858A4C...@dircon.co.uk>, Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
|> > |> Dan McGarry wrote:
|> > |>
|> > |> > Seriously, I think a number of "real-world" scenario types who claim
|> > |> > that something must be used because it works -- I think they just
|> > |> > don't see the (literal and figurative) repercussion of opening that
|> > |> > jar with a hammer.
|> > |>
|> > |> ...or maybe many of them do?
|> >
|> > Rhetoric is nice. Please provide the facts that lead you to respond with
|> > such a statement.
|>
|> Listen, Dan. *Maybe* many of them do. Is your prejudice factual? *Perhaps*
|> there is justification in some alternative argument. That's what I said. What
|> 'facts' could I offer you to support the idea that you are not necessarily
|> king of all you survey?
As far as my "royal" lineage is concerned, suffice it to say that I am
something more of a democrat.
A typical example of what I was responding to runs like this:
I have seen behaviour X under conditions Y using browser Z. I know that browser
Z and its clones has a substantial portion of the market. Therefore, browser Z
is my target audience, and I will leverage every one of its features in order
to make Web material that is immediate and compelling.
Within its own containment field, this seems almost reasonable. The arguments
against this have been played out over and over in this group. If you require
that I recapitulate, let me know.
|> > (see http://www2.moodindigo.com/dreams/ for an example)
|>
|> Guess what? 403. Tried index.htm, index.html, default.htm, default.html. Gave
|> up. All 404s. Reader access? Hunh! Forget it.
More fool I for giving out a URL without verifying it. Sorry the proper URL is:
http://www2.moodindigo.com/dreams/dreams.asp
And I should mention that one of IIS' quirks is that it insists on sending cookies.
I apologize if this inconveniences some people. I'm working on a way to mitigate this.
(And Gil, I think you tailed off the end of the URL trying to jump around the
404s. You must have landed on a framed page which does not take very kindly
to requests for flexibility. Let me just take this opportunity to restate that
all of http://www2.moodindigo.com/ represents a site in transition from the
representational to the presentational. Portions of the site are valid HTML 3.2,
parts are close, parts are painful to view in all but optimal(*) viewing
conditions. They represent various stages in my efforts to come to terms with
the issues being discussed in this and other threads.
AND! I think I've figured out why so many people assume that making pages
"Lynx compatible" requires work: The amount of time and effort required to
rescue a site from FrontPage is tremendous. The amount of time required to
create material that works properly from the start is substantially less.)
(*) "Optimal" being what I consider optimal, naturally <grin>. Don't worry,
this framed page is going as soon as I get time.
|> > |> > ....it cannot be made
|> > |> > to bend slightly in the direction of creating an aesthetically
|> > |> > pleasing setting for the transmission of content.
|> > |>
|> > |> Agck! Patently not true. Look around you.
|> >
|> > At what? Please, if you're going say that something is self-evident,
|> > you could at least pluck a single example from the multitude that
|> > apparently surround you.
|>
|> Pleasing *design*. Not necessarily valid. Not necessarily fast.
??? I think you misunderstood me. I'll try to make clear what I was trying to
say: I think it is not necessary to create documents whose markup "breaks"
browsers. I think that it is possible author documents whose presentation
is appropriate to its content and whose markup does not completely subvert
the HTML 3.2 DTD.
Not necessarily valid; necessarily not so invalid that they break under certain
conditions.
|> > |> > My personal wish is that authors of Web content could exchange
|> > |> > the word "juxtaposition" for "position". It's dead easy to place
|> > |> > things in proximity to one another, to establish the precedence
|> > |> > of elements on a web document. I think the "designer" who demands
|> > |> > more is not clear enough on what's available. ...
|> > |>
|> > |> Or maybe you are not clear enough on what a designer actually does?
|> >
|> > Look Steve, it's one thing to disagree. Fine and dandy. But please stop
|> > implying that those who disagree with you are not designers!
|>
|> Again. Where did I say that? I don't believe this, and I don't believe that
|> this belief has been implied in *any* of my posts. The reason that I suggested
|> that you may not understand the role of the designer was what I perceived to
|> be a naive argument over position/juxtaposition and its supposed equivalence
|> to proximity.
You said that when you implied that I didn't know my own job:
|> > |> Or maybe you are not clear enough on what a designer actually does?
Elsewhere (I'll spare you the quoting) you said that my point of view was
admirable for amateurs, but that professionals knew better. That brings the word
"condescension" to mind. I don't think there's a place for it in a reasoned
discussion.
As to position/juxtaposition: I can see that it might be considered naive. I
have always been something of an idealist. I would not say that juxtaposition
is equivalent to proximity. I would say that (visual) juxtaposition and proximity
are tools of a visual artist. Traditional designers in print and visual
media are accustomed to being able to control positioning of elements to a high
degree.
All I am saying is that in *HTML*, this control is non-existent, de facto and
de jure. Designers therefore, would do well to consider how this can be turned
to their advantage. You might call this naive. I call it adaptation to the medium.
|> > that perhaps I have never studied art and
|> > design,
|>
|> *maybe* (remember that word?) *maybe* it would be worthwhile.
<grin> I'll try not to torture you with double negatives again, okay? If you
re-read the sentence, it says that I have already done so.
|> > |> Essentially, Dan, I condone your intent but disagree entirely with your advice.
|> >
|> > That's your prerogative. In Usenet the custom is to do so by providing
|> > examples framed in a compelling manner so that others too can be persuaded.
|>
|> You have failed on that front, IMO.
That's your judgement to make.
--
Dan McGarry
Chris Gray
In article <34860BFD...@dircon.co.uk> Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk>
writes:
> Pleasing *design*. Not necessarily valid. Not necessarily fast.
>
> Try:
> http://www.apple.com/
> http://www.elsop.com/
> http://www.microsoft.com/
> http://www.gamelan.com/
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/
> http://www.hwg.org/
> http://www.java.motiv.co.uk/
> http://www.dallascowboys.com/
>
For the record that list includes two sites which hold information of
interest to me - Apple and the BBC - and both of them annoy me every
time I go there. Slow with images, unusable without, looks like a dog's
breakfast on my Newton. I agree that they look very nice when viewed
as "intended", but so what? I have a bottle-opener like that: Italian
design, very cute, useless for opening bottles. It was a present, of
course. :)
The other six sites I have no use for, so they can look as pretty as
they want to and I won't be bothered by them.
--
Chris Gray
Dan McGarry
In article <34867EBC...@dircon.co.uk>, Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
|> Arjun Ray wrote:
|> >
|> > In <34858A4C...@dircon.co.uk>,
|> > Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
|> >
|> > | Dan McGarry wrote:
|> > |
|> > | > Seriously, I think a number of "real-world" scenario types who claim
|> > | > that something must be used because it works -- I think they just
|> > | > don't see the (literal and figurative) repercussion of opening that
|> > | > jar with a hammer.
|> > |
|> > | ...or maybe many of them do?
|> >
|> > Not many. Perhaps a few.
|>
|> Well, put it this way: a newbie who was a 'purist' would be a pretty rare
|> thing. Actually, I happen to think that a newbie who is a 'designer' is also a
|> rare thing; though, superficially, some of the arguments may appear to be
|> similar. Therein, AFAICS lies the problem one has in attempting to forward a
|> discussion. It is very often backtracked to a FAQ answer... but the 'real'
|> designer knows the FAQ answer full well, and is attempting to explain
|> something that is admittedly very difficult indeed to *express in words*.
I agree that there likely no newbie "purists". More to the point, I don't know
of any newbies who consider themselves "purists". A substantial portion of
newbies consider themselves "designers".
I agree also with your assessment that this doesn't make them designers. Neither
does it excuse them from the technical rigours that any self-respecting
designer goes through in attempting to understand her/his craft.
Technical issues must come first, because without them we have no means
to express ourselves. Those things that are most difficult to express in
words are best expressed in examples, and we stumble and bumble our way
through the first awkward expression, but eventually, we learn to say what
we mean. Why don't you try creating a sample page that demonstrates what
you're getting at? I think it's important and deserves illustration.
|> When considering the particular needs of the web designer, the disagreement
|> usually focuses on the issues in design over spatial relationships and, yes
|> position. With the web, such relationships are *dynamic*.
More to the point, such relationships are not fixed, or precise.
|> This makes it an
|> extraordinary and exciting medium for a designer. (I hope one day to learn how
|> to use it to its full potential.) Quite often though, the use of such
|> expression in documents is dismissed as eye candy.
I'm not sure anyone has done this. If they have, I wouldn't assume that the
majority in this group share their perspective.
|> Well, perhaps we should
|> recognise that a large proportion of verbal content on the web is 'designed',
|> or written, to equally atrocious standards. But despite that we wouldn't
|> dismiss the power of words?
All content is designed, if only by accident or neglect. I'm also frequently
appalled by writing standards on a great many sites, but this is not the proper
forum for this discussion.
Let's grant the following (amend as needed): The WWW makes it possible to
transmit compelling content dynamically and immediately. The exploration
of design principles in this medium leads us to understand that precise and
consistent replication of layout cannot be taken for granted. The question,
then, is "how best to design with HTML on the WWW?"
|> > The subtext of the "if it
|> > works" argument is the suppression of any reason to ask and any reason
|> > to know "why?" -- and of course "what if it breaks?" is not only
|> > tomorrow's problem but also an opportunity to present the client with
|> > another bill. Call it the political economy of cottage industry.
|>
|> Hmm. Well, I certainly wouldn't suggest ignorance as a useful strategy.
|> Breakage is an issue, but not the only issue... and if businesses are prepared
|> to cough up more than once, having been informed of the ramifications of short
|> term decisions, then that is their affair. I'm sure my bank manager will not
|> complain about this behaviour. I have expresses my opinions very recently on
|> why many businesses knowingly take the decision to have breakable sites. (in
|> "Re:I'd like to add...")
Wouldn't it be so much better to offer such a business a valid and viable
alternative to having to recreate their material every time someone in
Silicon Valley sneezes?
|> > | > Using HTML for layout is simply use of an inappropriate tool.
|> > |
|> > | ...and the truly effective alternative is... what?
|> >
|> > The Right Tool For The Job. PDF. Postscript. There are others. HTTP
|> > delivers them all.
|>
|> Heard it... No thanks.
|>
|> Well, let's qualify that. I do use these formats, but less frequently. Sadly,
|> they are bulky. More importantly, they actually present different design
|> restrictions/opportunities to HTML documents and are thus suited to a
|> different class of content. ...IMO.
It's true, isn't it. I never really got excited about computer graphics
until the Web came along -- and Riven <grin>.
--
Dan McGarry
Gil Harvey
On 4 Dec 1997 15:39:54 GMT, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry)
wrote:
>(And Gil, I think you tailed off the end of the URL trying to jump around the
>404s. You must have landed on a framed page which does not take very kindly
>to requests for flexibility. Let me just take this opportunity to restate that
>all of http://www2.moodindigo.com/ represents a site in transition from the
>representational to the presentational. Portions of the site are valid HTML 3.2,
>parts are close, parts are painful to view in all but optimal(*) viewing
>conditions. They represent various stages in my efforts to come to terms with
>the issues being discussed in this and other threads.
"coming to terms with the issues"? Sorry, you lost me
there. Either the site is viewable or it isn't this one
isn't!
>AND! I think I've figured out why so many people assume that making pages
>"Lynx compatible" requires work: The amount of time and effort required to
>rescue a site from FrontPage is tremendous. The amount of time required to
>create material that works properly from the start is substantially less.)
I have never understood why someone thinks it takes
more effort to make a site "lynx compatible", of course I've
never understood why it matters a whole lot. About 9 or 10
months ago, I decided to get lynx and use it to see what all
the people here were talking about. I used it for about 2
months and deleted it, I haven't missed it and don't see any
reason to use it.
>You said that when you implied that I didn't know my own job:
Maybe he was using the moodindigo site as the
measure???????????????
Gil Harvey
On 4 Dec 1997 16:07:33 GMT, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry)
wrote:
>I agree that there likely no newbie "purists". More to the point, I don't know
>of any newbies who consider themselves "purists".
Well, there has been a few who after spending 3 or 4 weeks
here jump in and start spouting off, trying to emulate the
truely knowledgable few...
> substantial portion of newbies consider themselves "designers".
Sure, I think that's true, and natural......
>Technical issues must come first, because without them we have no means
>to express ourselves.
Maybe first, but it doesn't end there. I have a friend
who holds 2 graduate degrees (Aero-space engineering &
Computer Science), who has taught me worlds about computers,
programming, networking, etc., he has tried numerous times
to write a personal WWW Site and just can't get it. Oh sure
he can write a text version of what ever and get it to
render on a browser, but to add _any_ sort of "style" to it
he is lost. And there are those who can produce a great
advertising campaign for print or type, but can't get it to
work on the WWW. It takes some of both....
>Let's grant the following (amend as needed): The WWW makes it possible to
>transmit compelling content dynamically and immediately. The exploration
>of design principles in this medium leads us to understand that precise and
>consistent replication of layout cannot be taken for granted. The question,
>then, is "how best to design with HTML on the WWW?"
Ok, we finally agree - that is the question :-)
>Wouldn't it be so much better to offer such a business a valid and viable
>alternative to having to recreate their material every time someone in
>Silicon Valley sneezes?
As long as that "alternative" could fill their needs,
yes. But since it rarely does we have to use what we have
and try to reach a compromise.......
Alan J. Flavell
On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, Gil Harvey wrote:
> Maybe first, but it doesn't end there. I have a friend
> who holds 2 graduate degrees (Aero-space engineering &
> Computer Science), who has taught me worlds about computers,
> programming, networking, etc., he has tried numerous times
> to write a personal WWW Site and just can't get it. Oh sure
> he can write a text version of what ever and get it to
> render on a browser, but to add _any_ sort of "style" to it
> he is lost.
And this is where good browser design _could_ have made a big
difference, and where good style-sheets still _can_ make a
big difference.
Take one technical wiz who can write interesting and informative
text; add one designer who can produce a cosmetically attractive
(but informationally boring) stylesheet, and you have a world-beating
combination.
> And there are those who can produce a great
> advertising campaign for print or type, but can't get it to
> work on the WWW. It takes some of both....
I was hoping we would finally agree on something, and this seems to be
it.
> > The question,
> >then, is "how best to design with HTML on the WWW?"
>
> Ok, we finally agree - that is the question :-)
Me too...
Steve Davis
Arjun Ray wrote:
>
> In <34858A4C...@dircon.co.uk>,
> Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
>
> | Dan McGarry wrote:
> |
> | > Seriously, I think a number of "real-world" scenario types who claim
> | > that something must be used because it works -- I think they just
> | > don't see the (literal and figurative) repercussion of opening that
> | > jar with a hammer.
> |
> | ...or maybe many of them do?
>
> Not many. Perhaps a few.
Well, put it this way: a newbie who was a 'purist' would be a pretty rare
thing. Actually, I happen to think that a newbie who is a 'designer' is also a
rare thing; though, superficially, some of the arguments may appear to be
similar. Therein, AFAICS lies the problem one has in attempting to forward a
discussion. It is very often backtracked to a FAQ answer... but the 'real'
designer knows the FAQ answer full well, and is attempting to explain
something that is admittedly very difficult indeed to *express in words*.
When considering the particular needs of the web designer, the disagreement
usually focuses on the issues in design over spatial relationships and, yes
position. With the web, such relationships are *dynamic*. This makes it an
extraordinary and exciting medium for a designer. (I hope one day to learn how
to use it to its full potential.) Quite often though, the use of such
expression in documents is dismissed as eye candy. Well, perhaps we should
recognise that a large proportion of verbal content on the web is 'designed',
or written, to equally atrocious standards. But despite that we wouldn't
dismiss the power of words?
> The subtext of the "if it
> works" argument is the suppression of any reason to ask and any reason
> to know "why?" -- and of course "what if it breaks?" is not only
> tomorrow's problem but also an opportunity to present the client with
> another bill. Call it the political economy of cottage industry.
Hmm. Well, I certainly wouldn't suggest ignorance as a useful strategy.
Breakage is an issue, but not the only issue... and if businesses are prepared
to cough up more than once, having been informed of the ramifications of short
term decisions, then that is their affair. I'm sure my bank manager will not
complain about this behaviour. I have expresses my opinions very recently on
why many businesses knowingly take the decision to have breakable sites. (in
"Re:I'd like to add...")
> | > Using HTML for layout is simply use of an inappropriate tool.
> |
> | ...and the truly effective alternative is... what?
>
> The Right Tool For The Job. PDF. Postscript. There are others. HTTP
> delivers them all.
Heard it... No thanks.
Well, let's qualify that. I do use these formats, but less frequently. Sadly,
they are bulky. More importantly, they actually present different design
restrictions/opportunities to HTML documents and are thus suited to a
different class of content. ...IMO.
> Let's hope your use of "effective" hasn't begged a question.
The issue is tough, for sure. I suppose that's why some many avoid debating
it, miss the point, or resort to the easiest response of all: the exasperated
sigh.
Steve Davis
Dan McGarry
In article <3486dd85...@news.infi.net>, G...@Old-Hippy.com (Gil Harvey) writes:
|> On 4 Dec 1997 16:07:33 GMT, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry)
|> wrote:
|>
|> >I agree that there likely no newbie "purists". More to the point, I don't know
|> >of any newbies who consider themselves "purists".
|>
|> Well, there has been a few who after spending 3 or 4 weeks
|> here jump in and start spouting off, trying to emulate the
|> truely knowledgable few...
Emulate is a pretty strong word, if by that you mean "pass themselves
off as" knowledgeable. I'll assume that you're attempting to lay this
accusation at my door, and say this: I try not to "spout off" about
things that are beyond my experience,or about which I know too little
to offer something of value.
It does not take a computer science degree to read a DTD. A quick scan
of the HTML spcifications is enough to perceive what HTML was designed
to accomplish. I read the resource material, enough at least to begin to
understand, and immediately set about trying to reconcile the issues
of mark-up for content and presentation. The dog's breakfast of material
at http://www2.moodindigo.com/ is evidence of that, as you've seen.
Each section of this site represents an experiment in the capability
of web material to convey creative expression wihtout breaking anyone's
UA.
I have always considered that the purpose of newsgroups is to allow
a community of more or less experienced individuals to share their
points of view concerning a well-defined topic, in this case HTML
authoring on the WWW. If my contributions don't have the weight or
credibility of posts by more experienced, more knowledgeable people,
I don't think that either one of us should be surprised. You are
welcome to ignore my opinions, just as I retain the right to be
wrong, or even (G*d forbid!) to change my mind.
|> > substantial portion of newbies consider themselves "designers".
|>
|> Sure, I think that's true, and natural......
|>
|> >Technical issues must come first, because without them we have no means
|> >to express ourselves.
|>
|> Maybe first, but it doesn't end there. I have a friend
|> who holds 2 graduate degrees (Aero-space engineering &
|> Computer Science), who has taught me worlds about computers,
|> programming, networking, etc., he has tried numerous times
|> to write a personal WWW Site and just can't get it. Oh sure
|> he can write a text version of what ever and get it to
|> render on a browser, but to add _any_ sort of "style" to it
|> he is lost. And there are those who can produce a great
|> advertising campaign for print or type, but can't get it to
|> work on the WWW. It takes some of both....
I agree with you 100%. This group, however, concerns itself with that
first criterion. ciwa.site-design is probably the better locale for
discussions of the latter.
|> >Let's grant the following (amend as needed): The WWW makes it possible to
|> >transmit compelling content dynamically and immediately. The exploration
|> >of design principles in this medium leads us to understand that precise and
|> >consistent replication of layout cannot be taken for granted. The question,
|> >then, is "how best to design with HTML on the WWW?"
|>
|> Ok, we finally agree - that is the question :-)
We-ell, I'll admit I'm playing a little fast and loose with semantics.
What I did not want to do was to create the impression that I think
HTML cannot be used to mark up creative content, or that pages created
this way could not be pleasing to the viewer, so to speak.
Some "purists" will rightly take issue with the prejudice implicit in
my statement, but I think I can reconcile it with their concerns as well.
|> >Wouldn't it be so much better to offer such a business a valid and viable
|> >alternative to having to recreate their material every time someone in
|> >Silicon Valley sneezes?
|>
|> As long as that "alternative" could fill their needs,
|> yes. But since it rarely does we have to use what we have
|> and try to reach a compromise.......
This is where we disagree. I think HTML documents sometimes don't fulfill
a business' needs because the designer didn't apply the proper approach
in those cases. I think that because of the countless examples of
attempts to apply absolute control over the layout of a site via HTML,
something which is simply not possible.
I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I'm not saying
that the rules is the rules, so follow 'em. I'm just trying to foster
a reasoned discussion of how to approach the presentational aspects of
Web design, given the purpose and limitations of HTML.
In short: How much control is enough? Does layout necessitate control?
I say layout can be achieved in a more general (but no less successful)
manner using HTML, and without utterly subverting its intent.
--
Dan McGarry
Gil Harvey
On Thu, 4 Dec 1997 18:36:12 +0100, "Alan J. Flavell"
<fla...@mail.cern.ch> wrote:
>And this is where good browser design _could_ have made a big
>difference, and where good style-sheets still _can_ make a
>big difference.
No doubt, and 'maybe' someday we''l see a "good
browser" design, but alas I've got a client wanting his site
up today :-)
I honestly haven't used many style-sheets yet. My logs
are only showing about 20% version 4 browsers but I'm sure
that will increase.You are right they can/will make a huge
difference. BTW, Liams tool for checking Style-Sheets is
excellent.
>Take one technical wiz who can write interesting and informative
>text; add one designer who can produce a cosmetically attractive
>(but informationally boring) stylesheet, and you have a world-beating
>combination.
Yeah, but then they would argue about who was in
charge :-)
>I was hoping we would finally agree on something, and this seems to be
>it.
Well, I've agreed with a lot of what you've said here,
just hadn't felt you needed me to stroke the ego in public.
Of course I still disagree about some points, but that's
another thread...........
>> > The question,
>> >then, is "how best to design with HTML on the WWW?"
>>
>> Ok, we finally agree - that is the question :-)
>
>Me too...
Gee, I'm speechless....................just kidding.
Gil Harvey
On 4 Dec 1997 17:58:52 GMT, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry)
wrote:
>Emulate is a pretty strong word, if by that you mean "pass themselves
>off as" knowledgeable. I'll assume that you're attempting to lay this
>accusation at my door, and say this: I try not to "spout off" about
>things that are beyond my experience,or about which I know too little
>to offer something of value.
First, a few other names came to mind when I wrote
that, not yours, but if you feel like you need to defend
yourself, well.............
Oh, that is exactly what I meant by emulate....
>It does not take a computer science degree to read a DTD. A quick scan
>of the HTML spcifications is enough to perceive what HTML was designed
>to accomplish. I read the resource material, enough at least to begin to
>understand, and immediately set about trying to reconcile the issues
>of mark-up for content and presentation. The dog's breakfast of material
>at http://www2.moodindigo.com/ is evidence of that, as you've seen.
>Each section of this site represents an experiment in the capability
>of web material to convey creative expression wihtout breaking anyone's
>UA.
Nope, doesn't take _any_ degree to read. It _does_
take some degree of intelligence to understand what has been
read and how it applies.
>I have always considered that the purpose of newsgroups is to allow
>a community of more or less experienced individuals to share their
>points of view concerning a well-defined topic, in this case HTML
>authoring on the WWW. If my contributions don't have the weight or
>credibility of posts by more experienced, more knowledgeable people,
>I don't think that either one of us should be surprised. You are
>welcome to ignore my opinions, just as I retain the right to be
>wrong, or even (G*d forbid!) to change my mind.
Well, this 'community' has it's more _and_ less
experienced individuals :-) And for the record, I consider
myself "less" in regards to HTML! I started lurking here
over a year ago and kept mute untill one person
(knowledgable of HTML) began offering advice on marketing &
business, a subject they _very_ obviously were totally
unqualified at. Since that time I have gained great respect
for the knowledge of some and have learned to take comments
about the technical side of HTML and sift through the rest.
>I agree with you 100%. This group, however, concerns itself with that
>first criterion. ciwa.site-design is probably the better locale for
>discussions of the latter.
It only concerns itself with "that criterion" as long
as the poster doesn't 'spout off' on the subject of targets,
markets, marketing, what is or isn't good business sense,
etc.
Yeah, site-design would be a better locale, except the
knowledge base leaves much to be desired (sorry if that
offends some one).
>This is where we disagree. I think HTML documents sometimes don't fulfill
>a business' needs because the designer didn't apply the proper approach
>in those cases. I think that because of the countless examples of
>attempts to apply absolute control over the layout of a site via HTML,
>something which is simply not possible.
I would agree about the "proper approach" in a
minority of cases, most IMHO are simply a 'new' medium
thrust into a marriage with an old and set business
practice. And fear of change is one of the strongest fears
know to man.
>I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I'm not saying
>that the rules is the rules, so follow 'em. I'm just trying to foster
>a reasoned discussion of how to approach the presentational aspects of
>Web design, given the purpose and limitations of HTML.
>
>In short: How much control is enough? Does layout necessitate control?
>I say layout can be achieved in a more general (but no less successful)
>manner using HTML, and without utterly subverting its intent.
Yes it can. But as you said "You don't throw out the
baby with the bath water", if a client is totally, 100%
convinced the only way _his_
company/product/service/whatever is going to get across is
with blinking text, no matter how you or anyone else feel
about blinking text, that site will have blinking text. All
I have to decide is if I do the blinking text or the other
guy he hires does....
Dan McGarry
In article <3486db15...@news.infi.net>, G...@Old-Hippy.com (Gil Harvey) writes:
|> "coming to terms with the issues"? Sorry, you lost me
|> there. Either the site is viewable or it isn't this one
|> isn't!
My ISDN line has a habit of flaking out periodically. Combine this
with an invalid URL in another post, and we have most of the reason
why the site is not viewable. I've posted the corrected URL and
reconnected the server. You're welcome to view it at your leisure.
I'm not going to make excuses for the content of my site. It
represents several efforts I have made to test where layout
ends and HTML begins (or vice versa, if you like). The frames
page you referred to is one of the less successful endeavours.
It will change, as will much of the rest.
If anything, the lack of success I had with this page should
be an object lesson that frames don't wash and pixel values
generally inconvenience the very people they're supposed to
impress. That's the lesson I took from it, anyway.
|> >AND! I think I've figured out why so many people assume that making pages
|> >"Lynx compatible" requires work: The amount of time and effort required to
|> >rescue a site from FrontPage is tremendous. The amount of time required to
|> >create material that works properly from the start is substantially less.)
|>
|> I have never understood why someone thinks it takes
|> more effort to make a site "lynx compatible", of course I've
|> never understood why it matters a whole lot. About 9 or 10
|> months ago, I decided to get lynx and use it to see what all
|> the people here were talking about. I used it for about 2
|> months and deleted it, I haven't missed it and don't see any
|> reason to use it.
No one should have to go to great lengths to make their site
"Lynx compatible". I was remarking that pages created with
MS FrontPage, however, did require a lot of fixing before they
were once again functional in alternative browsing situations.
I won't reiterate all the valid reasons to use Lynx. Nobody said
you had to use it. It's only common decency to understand that
others do, and to react accordingly, though.
--
Dan McGarry
Shawn K. Quinn - NO SOLICITING
In message <6649h4$h...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, Dan McGarry <tal...@bnr.ca> wrote:
|Actually, I was using that term in a very non-judgemental way. I too
|create eye-candy on sites that call for it.
|
Nice eye candy. And I quote: "HTTP/1.1 403 Access Forbidden"
A bit off topic I know, but does anyone else get this problem on this URL?
--
Shawn K. Quinn - skq...@brokersys.com - http://www.brokersys.com/~skquinn/
Spam sucks, but I *still* post from a valid e-mail address, you should too.
Screwing up your address is part of the problem, not the solution. You should
also fill up the web robots with fake addresses like the ones at
http://www.brokersys.com/~skquinn/spamsucks.html
Dan McGarry
Gil Harvey wrote in message <34872a3a...@news.infi.net>...
>>It does not take a computer science degree to read a DTD. A quick scan
>>of the HTML spcifications is enough to perceive what HTML was designed
>>to accomplish. I read the resource material, enough at least to begin to
>>understand, and immediately set about trying to reconcile the issues
>>of mark-up for content and presentation.
> Nope, doesn't take _any_ degree to read. It _does_
>take some degree of intelligence to understand what has been
>read and how it applies.
Good point. If this thread can get some of us a little further down that
path, I think it will have served its purpose.
["that criterion" = technically sound HTML first, *then* good design]
> It only concerns itself with "that criterion" as long
>as the poster doesn't 'spout off' on the subject of targets,
>markets, marketing, what is or isn't good business sense,
>etc.
It's a fine line, I agree, and in many cases the use of invalid HTML has
been justified as being one of the hazards of doing business. I'm not
convinced that there's a necessary link there, but more on that below....
>>This is where we disagree. I think HTML documents sometimes don't fulfill
>>a business' needs because the designer didn't apply the proper approach
>>in those cases. I think that because of the countless examples of
>>attempts to apply absolute control over the layout of a site via HTML,
>>something which is simply not possible.
>
> I would agree about the "proper approach" in a
>minority of cases, most IMHO are simply a 'new' medium
>thrust into a marriage with an old and set business
>practice. And fear of change is one of the strongest fears
>know to man.
Bingo. Without wishing to sound prejudiced, I'm beginning to think that the
business ethic in the U.S is substantially different from that of Canada
(where I live and work). I have never felt that I was forced into a
situation where I had to give up on the long-term good in order to achieve
the short-term good. This seems to be the case when someone admits that,
while writing valid HTML is a commendable goal, it just won't win contracts.
I know I've simplified that argument. Feel free to correct me if I've missed
the fundamental part <grin>.
>>I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I'm not saying
>>that the rules is the rules, so follow 'em. I'm just trying to foster
>>a reasoned discussion of how to approach the presentational aspects of
>>Web design, given the purpose and limitations of HTML.
>>
>>In short: How much control is enough? Does layout necessitate control?
>>I say layout can be achieved in a more general (but no less successful)
>>manner using HTML, and without utterly subverting its intent.
>
> Yes it can. But as you said "You don't throw out the
>baby with the bath water", if a client is totally, 100%
>convinced the only way _his_
>company/product/service/whatever is going to get across is
>with blinking text, no matter how you or anyone else feel
>about blinking text, that site will have blinking text. All
>I have to decide is if I do the blinking text or the other
>guy he hires does....
Right. In my case, it'll be someone else adding the blink. I might go so far
as showing my client how to add a <blink> element before wishing him well on
the rest of the project.
Just so we're clear, what would you do, and why? I'd be interested to know
(mail it if you feel we're too far off-topic. My return address is
valid)....
--
Dan McGarry
OverByte Software
http://www.moodindigo.com/
Arjun Ray
In <34867EBC...@dircon.co.uk>,
| Arjun Ray wrote:
| > In <34858A4C...@dircon.co.uk>,
| > Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
| > | Dan McGarry wrote:
| When considering the particular needs of the web designer,
I'd say there's only one: knowledge of the technology involved. Asking
for understanding may be too much, however. Elsewhere recently, there
was someone who "needed" the browser back-button disabled for his "web
system". This "need", perceived as oh so pressing, was still a figment
of his imagination, as he had no notion of what a "web system" is --
beyond the feelgood buzzword value, of course. Which could very well
be the real point: to obliterate consideration of objective criteria
by establishing the *subjectivity* of such "needs" as primary.
OTOH, examining such needs in objective terms is a determination of
ends: what is the requirement? what is the goal? what purpose is
served? Once the ends are defined, it becomes a question of means, at
which point no further rational discussion is possible unless it's
part of the terms of discourse that the appropriateness of the means
is very much an issue. (IMHO, "discussion" of how to use screwdrivers
to hammer nails, because somebody "needs" that, is quite pointless.)
The trouble starts when people forget that technology is always an
issue of means, and start talking of technology (and at that, of a
particular technology) as an end.
I'll claim, as an unguarded generalization, that the (stereo)typical
web designer is incapable of stating his requirements in any terms
other than preconceived solutions. He wants a "web system". He wants
this-or-that "on the web". And so on. The common strain is "the web"
as a (perceived) requirement, when in fact it can at best only be a
solution -- *if* the problem is of the sort that can be solved in such
a fashion. I'll claim further, as another unguarded generalization,
that the (stereo)typical web designer cannot demonstrate either how or
why (by comparison with alternatives) "the web" is the technological
answer to the problem he might think (or claim) to be solving. Chances
are, how to make an answer out of "the web" is his real "problem":-)
| the disagreement usually focuses on the issues in design over spatial
| relationships and, yes position. With the web, such relationships are
| *dynamic*.
Sorry, you lost me. The assertion "With the web, spatial relationships
are dynamic" I find inscrutable. You might be saying something about
the mutability of visual displays in GUI environments, but why this
should be peculiar to the web -- or why it took the advent of the web
to make such mutability a pressing issue -- is by no means clear.
What technological features specific to the web make "spatial
relationships" "dynamic"? And what might this have to do with the
*needs* of the web designer?
| This makes it an extraordinary and exciting medium for a designer.
If you insist. A statement of the salient technological features of
"the web" motivating this appreciation would help, though.
| Quite often though, the use of such expression in documents is dismissed
| as eye candy.
I assume you're talking about "dynamic" "spatial relationships", but
my understanding of "eye candy" has always been distractions from (or
as a substitute for) content, relying on visual effects.
| Well, perhaps we should recognise that a large proportion of verbal
| content on the web is 'designed', or written, to equally atrocious
| standards. But despite that we wouldn't dismiss the power of words?
We seem to have wandered off the original point, which was (the
typical web designer's failure to undertake) the determination of the
appropriateness of particular means to particular ends, such as HTML
for reliable layout precision, in turn for the purpose of (emotively?
evocatively?) "powerful expression". Perhaps somewhere in there also
is some handwaving about "the web" as a protean universal "medium" or
somesuch.
| > The subtext of the "if it
| > works" argument is the suppression of any reason to ask and any reason
| > to know "why?" -- and of course "what if it breaks?" is not only
| > tomorrow's problem but also an opportunity to present the client with
| > another bill. Call it the political economy of cottage industry.
|
| Hmm. Well, I certainly wouldn't suggest ignorance as a useful strategy.
How about fostering it in others?
| Breakage is an issue, but not the only issue... and if businesses are
| prepared to cough up more than once, having been informed of the
| ramifications of short term decisions, then that is their affair.
By whom are these businesses informed, and to what substance?
| I do use [PDF, Postscript, etc.], but less frequently. Sadly, they are
| bulky.
The folks in comp.text.pdf have interesting things to say about that.
| More importantly, they actually present different design restrictions/
| opportunities to HTML documents and are thus suited to a different class
| of content. ...IMO.
Please elaborate.
:ar
Gil Harvey
On Thu, 4 Dec 1997 19:39:26 -0500, "Dan McGarry"
<dmcg...@moodindigo.com> wrote:
>Bingo. Without wishing to sound prejudiced, I'm beginning to think that the
>business ethic in the U.S is substantially different from that of Canada
>(where I live and work). I have never felt that I was forced into a
>situation where I had to give up on the long-term good in order to achieve
>the short-term good. This seems to be the case when someone admits that,
>while writing valid HTML is a commendable goal, it just won't win contracts.
Hmmm, I'm sure there is a large difference in the
business ethic. there are huge differences here within the
US, in the "South" (where I am located) things are much
more "laid back" or relaxed - I still consider a handshake a
commitment & it stands as a contract in "most" situations,
Try that in NYC or LA and you'll get burnt!
As far as "it just won't win contracts", I think that
is much more dependent on the 'type' of business than the
ethic. I think I could satisfy a Manufactoring or
Engineering client with a HTML 3.2 - Lynx Site, but a client
in the Entertainment Industry or even a majoe retailer.
Every client contact, every meeting, every proposal is
unique, you can _not_ "standardize" your design!
>Right. In my case, it'll be someone else adding the blink. I might go so far
>as showing my client how to add a <blink> element before wishing him well on
>the rest of the project.
>
>Just so we're clear, what would you do, and why? I'd be interested to know
>(mail it if you feel we're too far off-topic. My return address is
>valid)....
No need to EMail, I think maybe some others have
followed this and would like to know :-). Besides it is a
easy question....
If I knew I had explained _all_ the ramifications of
using <whatever> and the client made his/her decision based
on having the information I would go ahead using his/her
decision. At the time I & a client sign a contract I am an
employee of theirs for the duration of that contract. The
"Employer/Boss - Employee/Worker" realationship is pretty
simple: The Boss makes the decisions and the Worker preforms
the task based on those decisions...
Dan McGarry
In article <667g39$77g$2...@news.hal-pc.org>, skq...@brokersys.com (Shawn K. Quinn - NO SOLICITING) writes:
|> |(see http://www2.moodindigo.com/dreams/ for an example)
|>
|> Nice eye candy. And I quote: "HTTP/1.1 403 Access Forbidden"
|>
|> A bit off topic I know, but does anyone else get this problem on this URL?
Directory browsing is disabled on that system, hence the 403.
I didn't provide the complete URL, which as I have posted elsewhere, is:
http://www2.moodingigo.com/dreams/dreams.asp
Apologies for the goof-up.
--
Dan McGarry
Dan McGarry
In article <34876fe8....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
|> In <34867EBC...@dircon.co.uk>,
|> Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
|> | Arjun Ray wrote:
[snip!]
|> The trouble starts when people forget that technology is always an
|> issue of means, and start talking of technology (and at that, of a
|> particular technology) as an end.
I think the commodification of much of our lives is partly responsible
for this approach. People are not so concerned with writing the
great American novel as they are about selling books. The popularity
of a given television show is gauged by the number of people watching,
not by what they think of it.
Example: In Private Parts, that cinematic paean to Howard Stern, it is
reported that the average fan listens to him for a remarkable hour and
a half. Why? They want to hear what he's going to say next. The average
Howard Stern hater, mind you, listens for two and a half hours. Why?
(rimshot:) They want to hear what he's going to say next.
This content-free thinking can lead a company to go rampaging onto
the Web, with a pathological need to control as well as impress,
and a target audience of browsers, not people.
Numbers first; thought (if at all) second.
[snip!]
|> | the disagreement usually focuses on the issues in design over spatial
|> | relationships and, yes position. With the web, such relationships are
|> | *dynamic*.
|>
|> Sorry, you lost me. The assertion "With the web, spatial relationships
|> are dynamic" I find inscrutable. You might be saying something about
|> the mutability of visual displays in GUI environments, but why this
|> should be peculiar to the web -- or why it took the advent of the web
|> to make such mutability a pressing issue -- is by no means clear.
I'm beginning to think you're being a little disingenuous here, Arjun.
we can reasonably infer from the context that Steve is referring to
HTML as it is rendered in current software. There is no reason to believe
that the presentation of material via HTML and HTTP will ever achieve any
high degree of predictability at any time in the future, as the very
nature of hypertext and HTTP deny that "need".
This is not necessarily particular to the Web. The Web, however,
represents the first time that a great many of us in this group
have had to come to terms with such issues as the smorgasbord (sp?)
approach to data requesting/transmission, content (as opposed to
visual) mark up, and the many permutations involved in the display
of the above.
|> What technological features specific to the web make "spatial
|> relationships" "dynamic"? And what might this have to do with the
|> *needs* of the web designer?
I think it's more precise to say that spatial relationships cannot
be reliably or consistently forecast. Positioning is dynamic in the sense
that no two UAs can be relied upon to display the same content in
precsely the same way. One circumstance that seeks to obfuscate this
point is that, given the prevalence of "the two" browsers on the WWW,
a certain approximate consistency has been equated to the imperfect
achievement of absolute positioning, or if you prefer, consistent
display by the UA.
The presentational portions of the HTML 3.2 and 4.0 DTDs can be
attributed directly to the fact that people have mistaken this
relative consistency of display (a debatably admirable goal)
for a mere step along the road to precise layout.
There are other issues at play here of course, but for the purposes
of this thread, I think the central point has been made clear.
|> | This makes it an extraordinary and exciting medium for a designer.
|>
|> If you insist. A statement of the salient technological features of
|> "the web" motivating this appreciation would help, though.
1) Immediacy. I create something, locate it on a web server. It
now available from one end of the Net to the other, so to speak.
2) Low cost. I run a web server from my own home, at far less than
it would cost me to run a printing press, radio or TV station.
3) Small is beautiful. The nature of data transmission combined with
"browsing"(*) habits of most web explorers forces a heavy emphasis
on concision and focus. Outside of journalism, this is not always
expected or approved of.
|> | Quite often though, the use of such expression in documents is dismissed
|> | as eye candy.
|>
|> I assume you're talking about "dynamic" "spatial relationships", but
|> my understanding of "eye candy" has always been distractions from (or
|> as a substitute for) content, relying on visual effects.
Well, "eye candy" being content itself, cannot be quite precisely what
you say. Call it vacuous content, if you like, or lightweight. It has
its place along with everything else in the pantheon of Web content.
I'll leave it to you to decide which sphere it resides in <grin>.
--
Dan McGarry
Cathy Wylie
In article <6696bk$p...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
|>
|> In article <667g39$77g$2...@news.hal-pc.org>, skq...@brokersys.com (Shawn K. Quinn - NO SOLICITING) writes:
|> |> |(see http://www2.moodindigo.com/dreams/ for an example)
[strike two]
|> http://www2.moodingigo.com/dreams/dreams.asp
AAARRGGggghhhh!!
http://www2.moodindigo.com/dreams/dreams.asp
(Maybe it's something Freudian....)
|> Apologies for the goof-up.
ibid.
|> --
|> Dan McGarry
ibid.
Dan McGarry
In article <669988$s...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
|> 3) Small is beautiful. The nature of data transmission combined with
|> "browsing"(*) habits of most web explorers forces a heavy emphasis
|> on concision and focus. Outside of journalism, this is not always
|> expected or approved of.
(*) As described by Jakob Nielsen in "How Users Read on the Web,"
his review of user habits when navigating the web. He characterizes the
typical surfer as scanning rather than reading content, and recommends
using half the word count of conventional writing, among other things.
He does not discuss the drawbacks/benefits of graphical elements which
contain meaning or meaningful text.
Thanks to Alan Flavell for pointing out this resource:
--
Dan McGarry
Steve Davis
Arjun Ray wrote:
>
> In <34867EBC...@dircon.co.uk>,
> Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
> | Arjun Ray wrote:
> | > In <34858A4C...@dircon.co.uk>,
> | > Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
> | > | Dan McGarry wrote:
>
> | When considering the particular needs of the web designer,
>
> I'd say there's only one: knowledge of the technology involved.
Oh dear. IMHO, Arjun, there is no doubt that you are exceptionally well
informed on the technical aspects, which have an enormous bearing on the
discussion, but the belief that this is the only issue of importance reveals a
profound lack of understanding of the breadth of issues faced by producers of
any kind of content.
> OTOH, examining such needs in objective terms is a determination of
> ends: what is the requirement? what is the goal? what purpose is
> served?
And these are tough questions when the output is generated for the benefit of
an audience, and not for that of the author. There really *are* good reasons
why broadcasting and publishing are the way they are; without experience of
those industries, I can see why goal definition could seem a simple part of
the process.
> Once the ends are defined, it becomes a question of means, at
> which point no further rational discussion is possible unless it's
> part of the terms of discourse that the appropriateness of the means
> is very much an issue.
You speak truthfully. The word 'unless' is the entrance to the snake pit that
I personally find myself in.
> (IMHO, "discussion" of how to use screwdrivers
> to hammer nails, because somebody "needs" that, is quite pointless.)
> The trouble starts when people forget that technology is always an
> issue of means, and start talking of technology (and at that, of a
> particular technology) as an end.
The world is full of nails... There ain't a hammer in sight.
> I'll claim, as an unguarded generalization, that the (stereo)typical
> web designer is incapable of stating his requirements in any terms
> other than preconceived solutions.
Experienced designers have learned the value of flexibility far more painfully
than most other people.
> He wants a "web system". He wants
> this-or-that "on the web". And so on. The common strain is "the web"
> as a (perceived) requirement, when in fact it can at best only be a
> solution -- *if* the problem is of the sort that can be solved in such
> a fashion. I'll claim further, as another unguarded generalization,
> that the (stereo)typical web designer cannot demonstrate either how or
> why (by comparison with alternatives) "the web" is the technological
> answer to the problem he might think (or claim) to be solving. Chances
> are, how to make an answer out of "the web" is his real "problem":-)
Well, a rock is a rock.
>From your pov, it must seem unimaginable to you how we got from sitting on
rocks to making them power spacecraft.
Nevertheless, that rock might contain uranium...
[ big snip - to be fair, the gulf is just too large between us, and any
response would appear as merely carping, but the response to my following
comment was an unjustified kick in the ****, I thought... ]
> | Hmm. Well, I certainly wouldn't suggest ignorance as a useful strategy.
>
> How about fostering it in others?
Not that either. Are you suggesting that I am?
> | More importantly, they actually present different design restrictions/
> | opportunities to HTML documents and are thus suited to a different class
> | of content. ...IMO.
>
> Please elaborate.
>
Design for the static medium of DTP versus dynamic design for the Web. What else?
Now you'll ask yourself why I didn't tell you what the difference is. But then
if I say the problem is not dissimilar to trying to explain quantum
chromodynamics to a student of fine art, then perhaps you'll understand. It's
a course that takes many years to achieve, requires application on the part of
the student, and requires a major worldview adjustment.
How pompous am I?!? :)
Steve Davis
Eric Bohlman
Arjun Ray <ar...@nmds.com> wrote:
: In <34867EBC...@dircon.co.uk>,
: Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
: | Breakage is an issue, but not the only issue... and if businesses are
: | prepared to cough up more than once, having been informed of the
: | ramifications of short term decisions, then that is their affair.
: By whom are these businesses informed, and to what substance?
And do they understand the *total* costs of breakage? Remember that if
their site breaks for users of new browser versions, they may very well
lose potential (or even worse, existing) customers even if they eventually
cough up to fix it. You have to take opportunity costs into account, even
if you can't precisely quantify them.
Remember the Ford Pinto? Ford learned that due to a bad design involving
the gas tank, the Pinto was likely to explode in certain kinds of
collisions. Ford's management determined that the money it would take to
change the design was greater than the money they'd have to pay out in
lawsuits by the heirs of drivers/passengers killed by exploding Pintos,
and chose not to make the design changes. It *looked* like a rational, if
cold-hearted, business decision, but in fact it was irrational, because
Ford failed to take into account the sales that would be lost once the car
developed a reputation as a firetrap. It was opportunity costs that
eventually killed the model.
Arjun Ray
In <669988$s...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
| In article <34876fe8....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
| |> The trouble starts when people forget that technology is always an
| |> issue of means, and start talking of technology (and at that, of a
| |> particular technology) as an end.
|
| I think the commodification of much of our lives is partly responsible
| for this approach.
Possibly. In general, this is probably a failure in basic education,
where people have not learned how to think: rather, they have learned
how to figure out what to think. Watch the longhorns for which way to
stampede, and take care never to moo out of tune. Thus, a premium on
buzzwords: mellifluous floating abstractions as substitutes for
intellectual rigor. An inordinate amount of effort goes into talking
the right talk, as if pressing all the feelgoods in the right sequence
will assure others that something meaningful is being said, and as
long as specifics are studiously avoided nasty realities like square
pegs and round holes need never be confronted. And, of course, all the
better if everyone else does the same...
Thinking By Osmosis.
| This content-free thinking can lead a company to go rampaging onto
| the Web, with a pathological need to control as well as impress,
| and a target audience of browsers, not people.
It's worse than that. "Target audience" is a buzzword too (or perhaps,
a buzzphrase.) There are plenty of companies that have unilaterally
misunderstood the web; but many more have simply acquired their
misconceptions from others who just might have known better... but in
fact didn't. Beware "web designers", bearing "solutions".
| |> | the disagreement usually focuses on the issues in design over spatial
| |> | relationships and, yes position. With the web, such relationships are
| |> | *dynamic*.
| |>
| |> Sorry, you lost me. The assertion "With the web, spatial relationships
| |> are dynamic" I find inscrutable. You might be saying something about
| |> the mutability of visual displays in GUI environments, but why this
| |> should be peculiar to the web -- or why it took the advent of the web
| |> to make such mutability a pressing issue -- is by no means clear.
|
| I'm beginning to think you're being a little disingenuous here, Arjun.
| we can reasonably infer from the context that Steve is referring to
| HTML as it is rendered in current software.
He wrote "with the web", not "with the rendering of HTML", nor even
"with the rendering of HTML in a GUI". (I suppose conflation has been
declared impossible in, er, modern advanced thinking.) Besides that,
there was a long string of contextual antecedents leading up to the
assertion. First, there was "when considering the needs of the web
designer"; in which context -- the *needs* of the web designer --
there was "disagreement"; which in turn was characterized as "usually
focus[ed]" on certain "issues"; these issues were "in design over
spatial relationships"; at which point "dynamic" popped out of the
hat. Here's a recap:
When considering the particular needs of the web designer, the
disagreement usually focuses on the issues in design over spatial
relationships and, yes position. With the web, such relationships
are *dynamic*.
Is there an example of a Disagreement Focused On An Issue In Design
Over Spatial Relationships, which are (emphatically) Dynamic With The
Web, When Considering The Needs Etc. Etc.?
[The more I look at this, the more I'm reminded of what a friend in
college used to call "poetry": tendentious verbiage calculated to
obfuscate what could be a simple point -- and perhaps thus magnify its
implied significance in the minds of the unwary.]
| This is not necessarily particular to the Web. The Web, however,
| represents the first time that a great many of us in this group
| have had to come to terms with such issues as the smorgasbord (sp?)
| approach to data requesting/transmission, content (as opposed to
| visual) mark up, and the many permutations involved in the display
| of the above.
Come to terms? That suggests some sort of disagreeable surprise, i.e.
you (as one of the "great many", of course) were led to expect or
believe certain things, and found out otherwise. On what basis could
such preconceptions have been formed?
| |> What technological features specific to the web make "spatial
| |> relationships" "dynamic"? And what might this have to do with the
| |> *needs* of the web designer?
|
| I think it's more precise to say that spatial relationships cannot
| be reliably or consistently forecast. Positioning is dynamic in the sense
| that no two UAs can be relied upon to display the same content in
| precsely the same way. One circumstance that seeks to obfuscate this
| point is that, given the prevalence of "the two" browsers on the WWW,
| a certain approximate consistency has been equated to the imperfect
| achievement of absolute positioning, or if you prefer, consistent
| display by the UA.
|
| The presentational portions of the HTML 3.2 and 4.0 DTDs can be
| attributed directly to the fact that people have mistaken this
| relative consistency of display (a debatably admirable goal)
| for a mere step along the road to precise layout.
|
| There are other issues at play here of course, but for the purposes
| of this thread, I think the central point has been made clear.
OK. Let's drop the "with the web" part, please. But what about the
alleged *needs* of the web designer?
| |> | This makes it an extraordinary and exciting medium for a designer.
| |>
| |> If you insist. A statement of the salient technological features of
| |> "the web" motivating this appreciation would help, though.
|
| 1) Immediacy. I create something, locate it on a web server. It
| now available from one end of the Net to the other, so to speak.
That has always been true of the Internet. (It is not *characteristic*
of the Web alone. Something else is, but I'm waiting for somebody else
to identify it.)
| 2) Low cost. I run a web server from my own home, at far less than
| it would cost me to run a printing press, radio or TV station.
Ditto.
| 3) Small is beautiful. The nature of data transmission combined with
| "browsing"(*) habits of most web explorers forces a heavy emphasis
| on concision and focus. Outside of journalism, this is not always
| expected or approved of.
Half ditto. A relatively large proportion of casual participants is
indeed a characteristic of the Web; but this fact isn't technological,
it's demographic, and a media-fueled frenzy largely explains it:-)
We've come quite a bit away from the original contention, which was
something about the dynamism (dynamicity?) of spatial relationships
making the Web an extraordinary and exciting medium etc. etc. But
we're not particularly close to any technological features specific to
the Web. "Immediacy", "low cost", and "smallness" are all evaluations
in relation to a more fundamental set of facts.
Perhaps it's not wanting to know about these that's the hallmark of
the web designer whose *needs* we've been asked to consider...
:ar
Arjun Ray
In <3488659B...@dircon.co.uk>,
| Arjun Ray wrote:
| > In <34867EBC...@dircon.co.uk>,
| > Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
| > | When considering the particular needs of the web designer,
| >
| > I'd say there's only one: knowledge of the technology involved.
|
| Oh dear. IMHO, Arjun, there is no doubt that you are exceptionally
| well informed on the technical aspects,
Don't bet on it. This is Usenet.
| which have an enormous bearing on the discussion, but the belief
| that this is the only issue of importance
Knowledge of the technology is the only issue of importance because
without it there is no difference between design and wishful thinking,
between development and dabbling, between system and kludgery.
The web designer may "need" streaming multimedia; he actually needs to
learn about packet-switched networks.
The web designer may "need" absolute layout control; he actually needs
to learn what technologies enable this -- they exist, they are
available, it just so happens the price may not to be the *liking* of
His Anointedness, tsk tsk.
The web designer may "need" to know "how long a visitor stays at my
site"; he actually needs to learn about stateless HTTP transactions.
The web designer may "need" to insist on particular paths through his
content; he actually needs to learn that all URL-addressable resources
are directly accessible.
The web designer may "need" to put the North Pole in the middle of the
Sahara Desert; he actually needs to learn that this will have to wait
until the Web walks his dog and finishes his laundry.
| reveals a profound lack of understanding of the breadth of issues
| faced by producers of any kind of content.
Oh, I beg your pardon, Guv'nor! It's me touching my cap and me back to
weeding the garden and me minding my place. Right you are, Guv'nor!
Your opinion is duly noted. That you apparently think offering your
considered evaluation is better than presenting an argument appealing
to facts, is also noted. You may expatiate all you want on the "needs
of the web designer" and "breadth of issues", but I have no interest
in "discussion" of ineffables and profundities, especially when
"technical aspects" are by your grace imperiously dismissed.
| > OTOH, examining such needs in objective terms is a determination of
| > ends: what is the requirement? what is the goal? what purpose is
| > served?
|
| And these are tough questions when the output is generated for the benefit of
| an audience, and not for that of the author. There really *are* good reasons
| why broadcasting and publishing are the way they are; without experience of
| those industries, I can see why goal definition could seem a simple part of
| the process.
State some good reasons. Address the tough questions. If I keep
interest in this thread, I promise to ignore the condescension.
| > Once the ends are defined, it becomes a question of means, at
| > which point no further rational discussion is possible unless it's
| > part of the terms of discourse that the appropriateness of the means
| > is very much an issue.
|
| You speak truthfully. The word 'unless' is the entrance to the snake pit
| that I personally find myself in.
In other words, you would rather *not* address appropriateness?
| > I'll claim, as an unguarded generalization, that the (stereo)typical
| > web designer is incapable of stating his requirements in any terms
| > other than preconceived solutions.
|
| Experienced designers have learned the value of flexibility far more
| painfully than most other people.
*What* are they designing? Oh, I forgot. Sorry. Flexibility means
evading the necessity of any statement of a requirement that isn't a
preconceived solution.
| [ big snip - to be fair, the gulf is just too large between us,
Try facts to draw conclusions from, rather than conclusions to osmote
factoids from.
[re: the political economy of cottage industry]
| > | Hmm. Well, I certainly wouldn't suggest ignorance as a useful strategy.
| >
| > How about fostering it in others?
|
| Not that either. Are you suggesting that I am?
The issue was strategy, not suggestion. Your personal involvement is
irrelevant.
| > | More importantly, [PDF, Postscript, etc.] actually present different
| > | design restrictions/opportunities to HTML documents and are thus suited
| > | to a different class of content. ...IMO.
| >
| > Please elaborate.
| >
| Design for the static medium of DTP versus dynamic design for the Web. What else?
|
| Now you'll ask yourself why I didn't tell you what the difference is. But then
| if I say the problem is not dissimilar to trying to explain quantum
| chromodynamics to a student of fine art, then perhaps you'll understand. It's
| a course that takes many years to achieve, requires application on the part of
| the student, and requires a major worldview adjustment.
Good grief. Anything to avoid mentioning specifics.
| How pompous am I?!? :)
I'm sure your peers in the chattering classes will be only too happy
to have you tell them, at length.
:ar
Chip Ciammaichella
Well Steve, I don't have the intellect nor the vocablulary that many others
here have, but IMHO your response seems to say...
"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bovine
excrement."
Call me stupid, if you wish, but this hick sees more style than substance
in your arguments. No offense intended, just being honest.
Regards,
Chip Ciammaichella - ch...@raton.com
Please enjoy my original Christmas stories...
http://www.raton.com/~chip/chipfile.htm
1997's story is now online.
--
Steve Davis wrote in message <3488659B...@dircon.co.uk>...
>Now you'll ask yourself why I didn't tell you what the difference is. But
then
>if I say the problem is not dissimilar to trying to explain quantum
>chromodynamics to a student of fine art, then perhaps you'll understand.
It's
>a course that takes many years to achieve, requires application on the part
of
>the student, and requires a major worldview adjustment.
>
>How pompous am I?!? :)
>
>Steve Davis
>
Steve Davis
Arjun Ray wrote:
[ Where's the beef? ]
Well, Arjun, you're asking me to explain spatial/presentational content using
text content. Surely the wrong tool for the job. However, that these is beef
in my argument is for me, beyond doubt. I don't see how the discussion can
progress unless all parties can be convinced that presentational *content*
exists. Using more appropriate tools, I'll gives my explanation at length in a
more suitable medium, rather than attempt to speak unspeakable things here.
Expect me to post a url shortly.
btw, you can rely on me to be silent on this issue until I believe that I can
further the debate, whose starting point seems to need to be rather more basic
than I'd hoped.
Steve Davis
Steve Davis
Chip Ciammaichella wrote:
>
> Well Steve, I don't have the intellect nor the vocablulary that many others
> here have, but IMHO your response seems to say...
> "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bovine
> excrement."
>
> Call me stupid, if you wish, but this hick sees more style than substance
> in your arguments. No offense intended, just being honest.
You appear to say: You talk bullshit. No offence intended.
Well try this: Yes, you are ignorant. No offence intended.
I do have a genuine interest. My postings are not an ego trip, but my best
attempts to thoroughly research the issue of the validity of the arguments
for/against design. My arguments are not always supportable. When this is made
clear to me, I accept that fact. Your assessment does not convince me that I
was talking bullshit. Merely, that you could not be bothered to attempt to
take the discussion further by explaining where I was wrong.
Steve Davis
Alan J. Flavell
On Sat, 6 Dec 1997, Steve Davis wrote:
> Arjun Ray wrote:
>
> [ Where's the beef? ]
>
> Well, Arjun, you're asking me to explain spatial/presentational content using
> text content. Surely the wrong tool for the job. However, that these is beef
> in my argument is for me, beyond doubt. I don't see how the discussion can
> progress unless all parties can be convinced that presentational *content*
> exists.
I can't speak for Arjun, but I have no doubt that it "exists", indeed I
suppose I could find examples of it if I tried. I just haven't
recognised it yet in the WWW pages that you and others have offered as
specimens. The interesting part of this discussion is to get an idea
from their examples just what it is that the proponents consider to be
essential presentation, to the extent that they would point-blank refuse
to allow any reader to access their information devoid of the exact
presentation that they demand. As yet I've not been convinced by their
examples, including yours, OK?
And certainly not to the extent that could possibly excuse the outright
rudeness of a site that says "you _shall_ use browser A or B and none
other, or we refuse to even tell you how to buy tickets for our next
match". And this in the land of those who think themselves to be free?
--
'Cannot convert string "0" to type Widget'
Veronica Karlsson
Alan J. Flavell wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Dec 1997, Steve Davis wrote:
> > Arjun Ray wrote:
> > [ Where's the beef? ]
> >
> > Well, Arjun, you're asking me to explain spatial/presentational content using
> > text content. Surely the wrong tool for the job. However, that these is beef
> > in my argument is for me, beyond doubt. I don't see how the discussion can
> > progress unless all parties can be convinced that presentational *content*
> > exists.
>
> I can't speak for Arjun, but I have no doubt that it "exists", indeed I
> suppose I could find examples of it if I tried. I just haven't
> recognised it yet in the WWW pages that you and others have offered as
> specimens. The interesting part of this discussion is to get an idea
> from their examples just what it is that the proponents consider to be
> essential presentation, to the extent that they would point-blank refuse
> to allow any reader to access their information devoid of the exact
> presentation that they demand. As yet I've not been convinced by their
> examples, including yours, OK?
>
Do the "ascii animations" on this page qualify?
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/9334/
(but I suppose maybe not... she doesn't say "you can't visit", what she
says sounds more like "I wish more of you could visit"...)
--
:)
Irebavpn Xneyffba
( r93...@fz.yhgu.fr uggc://jjj.yhqq.yhgu.fr/~ix/ )
Jude Crouch
In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Gil Harvey <G...@Old-Hippy.com> wrote:
> On 4 Dec 1997 16:07:33 GMT, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry)
> wrote:
>
> >Technical issues must come first, because without them we have no means
> >to express ourselves.
> Maybe first, but it doesn't end there. I have a friend
> who holds 2 graduate degrees (Aero-space engineering &
> Computer Science), who has taught me worlds about computers,
> programming, networking, etc., he has tried numerous times
> to write a personal WWW Site and just can't get it. Oh sure
> he can write a text version of what ever and get it to
> render on a browser, but to add _any_ sort of "style" to it
> he is lost. And there are those who can produce a great
> advertising campaign for print or type, but can't get it to
> work on the WWW. It takes some of both....
>
I'm very much like your friend. There is no artistic talent
in my body.
But I think it takes both types of persons to create a really
creative, interesting site. My position is normally as
consultant to a company, to determine what should be included
in their site based on their need to provide certain information,
to provide a well-designed user navigation system, to provide
the subsidiary systems to create interactive forms, database
access, search tools and site maps. Once these things are
analyzed and prototyped, it's time for the designer to come
on board with the project.
The design phase is a series of negotiations between the
artistic designer, my concepts including access considerations,
and the ideas and restraints of the company. The artistic
designer bends my technical concepts and I explain the
ramifications. Customer ultimately decides the final form
based on good information from both of the consultants.
In many ways I am far more qualified to speak to the company
about business considerations. Most companies don't know
why they want a web site, they only know that they MUST have
one. I can give them concrete reasons. If I don't know the
in's and out's of their business, I know the right questions
to ask, I have the ability to analyze that information, and
I am able to transmit that information back to the company
to include in their master plan. Few artistic designers have
these abilities.
The artistic designer, on the other hand, has the ability
to analyze the marketing materials. How does the web site
complement the printed material, and multimedia material
like TV or radio commercials? How does the web extend the
brochures, stationary, business cards, etc. of the company?
The artistic designer is in a much better situation than I
to integrate the site into the normal marketing of the
client.
IMHO, the conflict between the technical designer and
the artistic designer is A Good Thing. The customer wins
when they have have two persons who are particulary
competant in their respective areas.
Jude
--
Jude Crouch (jcr...@pobox.com) - Computing since 1967!
Crouch Enterprises - Telecom, Internet & Unix Consulting
Oak Park, IL 708-848-0145 URL: http://www.pobox.com/~jcrouch
William G. Schlake
>On Sat, 6 Dec 1997, Steve Davis wrote:
>
>> Arjun Ray wrote:
>>
>> [ Where's the beef? ]
>>
>> Well, Arjun, you're asking me to explain spatial/presentational content using
>> text content. Surely the wrong tool for the job. However, that these is beef
>> in my argument is for me, beyond doubt. I don't see how the discussion can
>> progress unless all parties can be convinced that presentational *content*
>> exists.
>
>I can't speak for Arjun, but I have no doubt that it "exists", indeed I
>suppose I could find examples of it if I tried. I just haven't
>recognised it yet in the WWW pages that you and others have offered as
>specimens. The interesting part of this discussion is to get an idea
>from their examples just what it is that the proponents consider to be
>essential presentation, to the extent that they would point-blank refuse
>to allow any reader to access their information devoid of the exact
>presentation that they demand. As yet I've not been convinced by their
>examples, including yours, OK?
>
>And certainly not to the extent that could possibly excuse the outright
>rudeness of a site that says "you _shall_ use browser A or B and none
>other, or we refuse to even tell you how to buy tickets for our next
>match". And this in the land of those who think themselves to be free?
You keep missing the point. For all practical purposes there are only
two browsers in wide use. They're not A and B, rather N and M. Anyone
reading a newspaper, magazine article, going to their favorite
computer store, picking up any mail order catalog or viewing a TV show
about the Internet understands that's the way things are. If other
browsers get mentioned at all, which is rare, they are but a footnote
and a small one.
You may not like it, but that's the facts. That does not interfere
with anyone's right to use Arena, Lynx, Opera or some other browser.
However to demand that all sites be viewable without some added
difficulties or some extra effort on the visitor's part if they elect
to march to a different drummer is simply unrealistic and denying
reality. No matter how much you try to deny it, the choice of how a
site looks rests with it's author. Any choices made relating to
extensions or use of non standard HTML is at the option of the
creator. Suggesting the author's don't care or are too stupid to know
better, the all to typical noise heard here, is again denying the
reality of the situation.
The confusion comes from what is considered "essential presentation"
your words, not mine. While some sites go overboard, most that embrace
extensions that are so hated here do so in a way that adds to the
overall look of the site. I know, you think "look" is irrelevant.
You're wrong. What I object to strongly is those that use extensions
wisely get lumped together with those that plaster a use Netscape or
use Microsoft icon on their page.
A quick look at most commercial pages shows extensions in wide use. I
know you don't like commercialization of the Web either. The real
problem is you and some here don't like the direction the Web is
moving or that Netscape and Microsoft have thumbed their nose at
so-called standards and blazed a path with their own which
interestingly enough in time mostly get picked up as "standard" by the
W3C at some point in the future. Surprise, I don't much care for what
happened either. I do accept that it has happened. And that's the
proper attitude, not sticking your head in the sand and trying to
pretend otherwise.
True enough with some effort most pages can be made W3C compliant and
still retain some, frequently most of the enhancements. However, at
this stage of the game to rely only on CSS is unrealistic as is
stripping everything out that makes pages standout simply in some vain
effort to try and make your pages totally accessible to everyone.
The Holy Grail is a phantom. Unless you limit yourself to the crudest
and most primitive HTML elements there's ALWAYS someone who won't be
able to see your site as it was intended because he's too stubborn to
get rid of his crude, early generation browser.
That isn't likely to change in the near future. Like before with other
things, Netscape and Microsoft have now introduced new streaming
technologies. I welcome them as I do their competition with each
other. In the final analysis that competition has enriched Web pages
and will continue to do so. The public is the ultimate winner because
of it. Imagine how dreary the Web would be and how primitive it would
look if it were not for Netscape's and Microsoft's enhancements. I
know, some would have liked things done differently. I and about
50,000,000 others think things turned out pretty well so far, and it's
still early in the game. Wait till you see what's comming tommorow,
and rest assured, some of it won't be in line with W3C's idea of
what's right, because that's the way things are. Accept it or continue
to deny it. Again, that's the facts.
Bill
Bill Bereza
In article <Pine.A41.3.95a.971206154416.59900B-100000@sp056>,
Alan J. Flavell <fla...@mail.cern.ch> wrote:
>On Sat, 6 Dec 1997, Steve Davis wrote:
>
>> Arjun Ray wrote:
>>
>> [ Where's the beef? ]
>>
>> Well, Arjun, you're asking me to explain spatial/presentational content using
>> text content. Surely the wrong tool for the job. However, that these is beef
>> in my argument is for me, beyond doubt. I don't see how the discussion can
>> progress unless all parties can be convinced that presentational *content*
>> exists.
>
>I can't speak for Arjun, but I have no doubt that it "exists", indeed I
>suppose I could find examples of it if I tried. I just haven't
>recognised it yet in the WWW pages that you and others have offered as
>specimens. The interesting part of this discussion is to get an idea
Well, I have a document which contains some diagrams which, by the
presentation of items within the images, contain some informational
content. But I must admit that the same content in the diagrams can
be represented in text. (The document in question:
<URL:http://www.concentric.net/~bereza/pedantiWEB/browser.html>
contains textual descriptions in addition to the diagrams)
So this is an example of where presentation can have informational
content, but it doesn't require that presentation in order to give
the information. Which I think is true of any type of information.
Any representation may have some content, and content may have
many representations, but I don't believe that there exists some
content for which there is only one representation.
(I believe this statement could be represented as some kind of
mathematical logic expression, but that's besides the point.)
So I believe Steve when he says that presentational* content exists,
but I have yet to see any content which requires a specific
presentation.
(Do all the paragraphs above say the same thing? Maybe.)
*For you aue fans; there is no such word as presentational, right?
We should be using representational and representation in stead of
presentational and presentation.
--
Bill Bereza ber...@pobox.com http://www.pobox.com/~bereza/
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
Roving Reporter
There is a page that I am aware of that has to be graphical
due to the information contained: It's the SignWriting site,
and the url is http://www.signwriting.org/
They use a special font that cannot be represented as text
because it's a written version of American sign language.
This is the *only* site that I know of which has such a
requirement, but there may be other languages which have
similar restraints.
**********************************************************
* Therese Shellabarger - tls...@concentric.net *
* http://www.concentric.net/~tlshell/ Shalom chaverot! *
**********************************************************
* See if I care about your opinion, the life I've led -- *
* each dawn I go forth with sword in hand, to sweep scum *
* from the decks of my battleship. Revenge at last, and *
* it be sweet, too, 'cuz now I get the girl, _not you_. *
Chip Ciammaichella
If I could understand what you are trying to communicate, perhaps I =
could respond as you desire. I don't challenge your genuine interest, =
nor do I think you are on an ego trip. I've worked with many very =
intelligent people, and many of those had a hard time translating that =
intellect into content that could be understood by the journeyman. I =
have also worked with a great many politicians who are masters at hiding =
real meaning in rhetoric, lofty words and abstractions. I haven't yet =
decided which category you fall into.=20
We don't know each other, but I enjoy these NG and finally feel =
comfortable enough with my own knowledge of authoring to engage in =
discussions with many of you folks. I will apologize in advance for my =
tendency to say exactly what I think, and not always tactfully. I think =
my previous post proves that I'm not a master of tact, even when I try =
to be tactful. :-)
Regards,
=20
Chip Ciammaichella - ch...@raton.com
Raton Chamber & Economic Development Council
http://www.raton.com/=20
Please enjoy my original Christmas stories
http://www.raton.com/~chip/chipfile.htm=20
--
=20
Steve Davis wrote in message <34892513...@dircon.co.uk>...
>
>You appear to say: You talk bullshit. No offence intended.
>
>Well try this: Yes, you are ignorant. No offence intended.
>
>I do have a genuine interest. My postings are not an ego trip, but my =
best
>attempts to thoroughly research the issue of the validity of the =
arguments
>for/against design. My arguments are not always supportable. When this =
is made
>clear to me, I accept that fact. Your assessment does not convince me =
that I
>was talking bullshit. Merely, that you could not be bothered to attempt =
Chip Ciammaichella
Perhaps a map would qualify as presentational content? ie. MapQuest =
http://www.mapquest.com/=20
Regards,
=20
Chip Ciammaichella - ch...@raton.com
Raton Chamber & Economic Development Council
http://www.raton.com/=20
Please enjoy my original Christmas stories
http://www.raton.com/~chip/chipfile.htm=20
--
=20
=20
Alan J. Flavell wrote in message ...
>I can't speak for Arjun, but I have no doubt that it "exists", indeed I
>suppose I could find examples of it if I tried. I just haven't
>recognised it yet in the WWW pages that you and others have offered as
>specimens. The interesting part of this discussion is to get an idea
>from their examples just what it is that the proponents consider to be
>essential presentation, to the extent that they would point-blank =
refuse
>to allow any reader to access their information devoid of the exact
>presentation that they demand. As yet I've not been convinced by their
>examples, including yours, OK?=20
Jukka Korpela
On Sat, 06 Dec 1997 10:12:36 +0000, Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk>
wrote:
>I do have a genuine interest. My postings are not an ego trip, but my best
>attempts to thoroughly research the issue of the validity of the arguments
>for/against design.
Then I'd suggest defining what you mean by "design", since it is in
itself a rather vague word, which probably means very different things
to different people. For instance, to me "design" is simply by having
a general mental idea of something before really starting to produce
it concretely. To other people, "design" seems to indicate high
quality in arts and crafts. (In fact, in my native language, the
English word "design" is used in such a sense, but I assume it
actually covers just a small part of the meaning of that word in
English.)
I assume you mean "visual design". Actually, with emphasis on
"visual". I suppose people who have knowledge and experience on taking
visual aspects into account when creating things are often rather
frustrated, since they encounter people who are unable or unwilling to
appreciate the importance of visual factors.
On the other hand, people who think they roughly know what is the
sound idea of HTML and its intrinsic properties (including inevitable
limitations) often get frustrated, too. Perhaps some of us think that
visual design isn't important. Perhaps they (well, we) just express
themselves in a way which gives such an _impression_. Anyway, the
basic point here is not what _should_ or should not be done in HTML
but what _can_ be done in HTML.
As a language for visual design, HTML is very primitive. Using various
nonstandard features does not add very much that (but causes a lot of
risks). Even if HTML were extended with tools for controlling visual
presentation, you wouldn't be able to do very much with it. The idea
of being processed by various user agents in various environments
implies that there are _inherent_ restrictions on the amount of
control you can have.
By restricting oneself to some rather well-defined browsing
environment (with definite requirements on resolution, window size,
colors, etc, naturally under one single browser), and assuming you
could use a large repertoire of presentational control in HTML, you
might finally say you can do real visual design. But then, you would
have reinvented the wheel. You would have something which you already
have, since you can put PostScript files or PDF files or AutoCad files
or whatever onto the Web. As a side effect, HTML as a language
independent of particular devices, platforms and programs would have
been effectively destroyed, converted to a poor man's page layout
language.
Visual design using HTML can be really frustrating. My goals in that
area have always been very modest, to make an understatement. Yet even
small things get pretty hard if one wants to do them in a
nondestructive way, i.e. in a way which may improve visual
presentation and doesn't break things when it doesn't work. I still
haven't found even an acceptable way to suggest a background color,
although sometimes I feel tempted to try it. Whether I do it in HTML
(using attributes to BODY) or in style sheets, I should define text
and link colors too. But setting link colors may interfere with user's
preferences and make links unrecognizable (especially when the browser
does not use underlining for links). Background images are even worse,
since they may (and in fact quite often do) interfere with what
happens to be the font face.
To conclude, HTML is unsuitable for visual design by its very essence.
Naturally you can embed images or link to them and use visual design
tools for creating the images.
--
Yucca, http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/
Gil Harvey
On 6 Dec 1997 17:51:19 GMT, Jude Crouch
<jcr...@Mercury.mcs.net> wrote:
>I'm very much like your friend. There is no artistic talent
>in my body.
>
>But I think it takes both types of persons to create a really
>creative, interesting site. My position is normally as
>consultant to a company, to determine what should be included
>in their site based on their need to provide certain information,
>to provide a well-designed user navigation system, to provide
>the subsidiary systems to create interactive forms, database
>access, search tools and site maps. Once these things are
>analyzed and prototyped, it's time for the designer to come
>on board with the project.
Sounds like a very good way of creating a site.
>The design phase is a series of negotiations between the
>artistic designer, my concepts including access considerations,
>and the ideas and restraints of the company. The artistic
>designer bends my technical concepts and I explain the
>ramifications. Customer ultimately decides the final form
>based on good information from both of the consultants.
Again sounds great. I did notice you acknowledge the
final decision belongs to the Customer. As a much smaller
firm, I don't have the resources to have 'two' consultants
provide the customer with information. It's me wearing both
hats and trying _very_ hard to maintain integrity with both.
>In many ways I am far more qualified to speak to the company
>about business considerations. Most companies don't know
>why they want a web site, they only know that they MUST have
>one. I can give them concrete reasons. If I don't know the
>in's and out's of their business, I know the right questions
>to ask, I have the ability to analyze that information, and
>I am able to transmit that information back to the company
>to include in their master plan. Few artistic designers have
>these abilities.
Now we get to the _real_ issue. I completely agree
with your statement that most don't know why, and need some
real direction in this area. I also agree that _most_
designers do not have the experience or 'business knowledge'
to guide the customer through this process. I'm lucky
dealing within my local business community in that I am
know.
>The artistic designer, on the other hand, has the ability
>to analyze the marketing materials. How does the web site
>complement the printed material, and multimedia material
>like TV or radio commercials? How does the web extend the
>brochures, stationary, business cards, etc. of the company?
>The artistic designer is in a much better situation than I
>to integrate the site into the normal marketing of the
>client.
Again, you have summarized very well. These are
considerations that a large number of designers (from BOTH
camps) tend to dismiss as "eye candy" type of design
elements.
>IMHO, the conflict between the technical designer and
>the artistic designer is A Good Thing. The customer wins
>when they have have two persons who are particulary
>competant in their respective areas.
I agree, I just wonder how many Site design firms are
of the "one person" or maybe two???
Arjun Ray
In <34895CB7...@dircon.co.uk>,
Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
| you're asking me to explain spatial/presentational content
Actually, I was hoping you would explain its relevance.
| using text content. Surely the wrong tool for the job.
This is Usenet.
| However, that these is beef in my argument
That's the problem. You confuse opinion with argument.
| is for me, beyond doubt.
I suppose this statement of your personal conviction is an argument
too.
| I don't see how the discussion can progress unless all parties can
| be convinced that presentational *content* exists.
I don't see how the discussion can progress unless a certain party
refrains from losing focus, ducking questions, slithering off the
point when called upon to substantiate, and failing to start a new
thread when changing the subject to ride a hobbyhorse is all he really
wants to do.
| btw, you can rely on me to be silent on this issue until I believe
| that I can further the debate, whose starting point seems to need to
| be rather more basic than I'd hoped.
Rest assured that readers of this newsgroup would prefer silence to
fatuous commentary.
:ar
Arjun Ray
In <34892513...@dircon.co.uk>,
Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> writes:
| My postings are [...] my best attempts to thoroughly research the
| issue of the validity of the arguments for/against design.
There you go again. Design. Completely unqualified. A grandiloquent
floating abstraction. A buzzword.
The notion, that there could a valid argument *against* design at such
a level of generality, is preposterous. You are thoroughly researching
a figment of your imagination.
:ar
Chris Gray
In article <3488b762....@news.nyct.net> ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray)
writes:
> [re: "immediacy"]
>
> That has always been true of the Internet. (It is not *characteristic*
> of the Web alone. Something else is, but I'm waiting for somebody else
> to identify it.)
>
Hiss boo. Now everybody has to guess what card Arjun is holding behind
his back, given only that it is Characteristic Of The Web Alone. A
psychiatrist I know tormented a Compuserve forum for weeks on end by
asking for the roots of love, adding that he already knew the answer:
when he finally revealed it, almost no one was happy. :)
But OK, I'll bite: it's hyperlinks and the URL principle?
(I've a couple more answers up my sleeve ...)
--
Chris Gray
Dan McGarry
In article <3488b762....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
|> In <669988$s...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
|> | In article <34876fe8....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
|> Beware "web designers", bearing "solutions".
<grin>
[snip!]
|> | |> Sorry, you lost me. The assertion "With the web, spatial relationships
|> | |> are dynamic" I find inscrutable. You might be saying something about
|> | |> the mutability of visual displays in GUI environments, but why this
|> | |> should be peculiar to the web -- or why it took the advent of the web
|> | |> to make such mutability a pressing issue -- is by no means clear.
|> |
|> | I'm beginning to think you're being a little disingenuous here, Arjun.
|> | we can reasonably infer from the context that Steve is referring to
|> | HTML as it is rendered in current software.
|>
|> He wrote "with the web", not "with the rendering of HTML", nor even
|> "with the rendering of HTML in a GUI".
I won't begin to defend anyone's use of language in Usenet, not even
my own. Remember, if someone states a thing vaguely, it's up to you to
reconstruct it to suit your needs(!).
Seriously: While I understand the need for precise language, and enjoy
it when I see it, I don't think it serves a discussion to slow its
progress to the pace of someone's ability to learn the language. It was
clear enough from the several passes made at the same target just what
he was aiming at. (If you don't agree with this, return to the previous
paragraph and try again <grin>).
[snip!]
|> Is there an example of a Disagreement Focused On An Issue In Design
|> Over Spatial Relationships, which are (emphatically) Dynamic With The
|> Web, When Considering The Needs Etc. Etc.?
|>
|> [The more I look at this, the more I'm reminded of what a friend in
|> college used to call "poetry": tendentious verbiage calculated to
|> obfuscate what could be a simple point -- and perhaps thus magnify its
|> implied significance in the minds of the unwary.]
I resent that. All the poetry I ever studied was composed entirely
of sentence fragments fired onto the page by an old blunderbuss.
Problem is, your friend's definition still applies....
|> | This is not necessarily particular to the Web. The Web, however,
|> | represents the first time that a great many of us in this group
|> | have had to come to terms with such issues as the smorgasbord (sp?)
|> | approach to data requesting/transmission, content (as opposed to
|> | visual) mark up, and the many permutations involved in the display
|> | of the above.
|>
|> Come to terms? That suggests some sort of disagreeable surprise, i.e.
|> you (as one of the "great many", of course) were led to expect or
|> believe certain things, and found out otherwise. On what basis could
|> such preconceptions have been formed?
As children, we tend to allow our attention to wander more in the
direction of the candy display than in that of the produce section.
My experience leads me to believe that people don't get curious about
how the Web and HTTP actually work until the pat answers they were
provided with at the beginning cease to work.
[snip!]
|> OK. Let's drop the "with the web" part, please. But what about the
|> alleged *needs* of the web designer?
I'll leave it to Steve to attend to any "needs". I've always considered
the designers role to be similar to that of a circus animal. It's mostly
a matter of figuring out the size and nature of the cage/stage, and
working within those confines to dazzle your onlookers.
The only need that I'm aware of is the need to make absolute best use of
the tools at hand. This implies knowing what they're for -- which is more
than can be said for me when I started doing this stuff. And I'm afraid
that in this case it my be relatively safe to assume that this experience
has been shared by a great many "Web Designers" working today.
|> | |> | This makes it an extraordinary and exciting medium for a designer.
|> | |>
|> | |> If you insist. A statement of the salient technological features of
|> | |> "the web" motivating this appreciation would help, though.
|> |
|> | 1) Immediacy. I create something, locate it on a web server. It
|> | now available from one end of the Net to the other, so to speak.
|>
|> That has always been true of the Internet. (It is not *characteristic*
|> of the Web alone. Something else is, but I'm waiting for somebody else
|> to identify it.)
Maybe I should have used a better description than "immediacy." I'm
not sure what it would be, mind you. The protocol is lightweight,
the implementation quite simple, the mark up language is only slightly
less than child's play. Worse yet, I can install MS FrontPage and MS
Personal Web Server and have an approximation of a website up and
running inside of an hour. Why cook when you can microwave?
We all know that the answer to that is simple: it's easy to do something
far better in only slightly more time. As a bonus, people might actually
respect your ability to do it.
|> | 3) Small is beautiful. The nature of data transmission combined with
|> | "browsing"(*) habits of most web explorers forces a heavy emphasis
|> | on concision and focus. Outside of journalism, this is not always
|> | expected or approved of.
|>
|> Half ditto. A relatively large proportion of casual participants is
|> indeed a characteristic of the Web; but this fact isn't technological,
|> it's demographic, and a media-fueled frenzy largely explains it:-)
This fact is *also* technological. Transatlantic and trans-pacific
connections are still extremely crowded. If I want my material to
reach a word-wide audience, I'd better go easy on the bandwidth.
If my site is popular to the tune of millions of hits a day, I don't
get a choice; every byte is going to cost me money and time.
|> We've come quite a bit away from the original contention, which was
|> something about the dynamism (dynamicity?) of spatial relationships
|> making the Web an extraordinary and exciting medium etc. etc. But
|> we're not particularly close to any technological features specific to
|> the Web. "Immediacy", "low cost", and "smallness" are all evaluations
|> in relation to a more fundamental set of facts.
Statelessness is of course the final and "dynamic" factor. The contract
between the server and the client has little more depth than someone
standing in the back of a bread truck and tossing a loaf every time
someone hands him a coin.
The fact that the server doesn't much care where the content
is going, how much content is going there, how it gets there, or
most importantly, what happens to it when it arrives... All of
these things are what conspire to create a situation that might
have made Tristan Tzara and the rest of the Dadaists happy campers
indeed.
Modern commercial designers, accustomed to singing in their habitual
chains, are in many cases not happy when they receive this news.
They didn't like it when Tzara pulled words out of a hat in the
first place; how are they going to feel when they're told they have
to place their material into a hat, then to give the hat away? The
extent to which the content is *not* arranged randomly(1) on the
other end is only a measure of the human desire to co-operate.
(1) Oh all right, "arbitrarily" then. But I still maintain that over
the breadth of humanity, the differences in the arrangement and
ordering of elements into what we like to call logic begin to
seem more and more random with time and exposure.
So now I've stated more of the "problem". I'll post something about
the "needs" of a designer later....
--
Dan McGarry
Toby Speight
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> In <URL:news:GRAYC.97D...@btm0qt.se.bel.alcatel.be>, Chris
> wrote:
Chris> Hiss boo. Now everybody has to guess what card Arjun is holding
Chris> behind his back, given only that it is Characteristic Of The Web
Chris> Alone. A psychiatrist I know tormented a Compuserve forum for
Chris> weeks on end by asking for the roots of love, adding that he
Chris> already knew the answer: when he finally revealed it, almost no
Chris> one was happy. :)
And now Chris won't tell us what it was. If you can't beat 'em, join
'em, eh Chris?
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--
"You can ... sell your soul for complete control -
is that really what you need?" (Pink Floyd)
Chip Ciammaichella
Arjun Ray wrote in message <348ca045....@news.nyct.net>...
>
>All the feelgood wofflegab about the web being some protean,
>universal, omni-enabling Mother Of All Media and so forth and so on
>and so on and so forth, is a crock. Also, a fine bogosity trigger.
I disagree, Arjun. I think the web (more likely it's successors) can be
compared to the "Borg" of recent trekkie fame. Sooner or later it will
absorb other electronic media. Notice I said electronic, as I believe
(and hope) that nothing will ever absorb the printed page. Hope I
didn't trip your trigger. :-)
>
>| The fact that the server doesn't much care where the content
>| is going, how much content is going there, how it gets there, or
>| most importantly, what happens to it when it arrives... All of
>| these things are what conspire to create a situation that might
>| have made Tristan Tzara and the rest of the Dadaists happy campers
>| indeed.
>
>Yup. The Web is about clients pulling, not servers pushing. The
>available technologies enable appropriately. Push all you want, it's a
>pull medium.
For now, but not if Gates & Co. have their way. Case in point: the
default enabling of channels in IE4. IMHO MS, as well as a great many
commercial entities, are banking on their ability to "train" the growing
number of novice users to the concept that channels and push are "the
way it should be." Just as we tolerate broadcast advertising, they
expect future users to tolerate pushed ads into their PCs/terminals.
It's incrementalism, just like the battle against tobacco, guns, etc.
have been for many years. Like it or not, it seems the web is fast
being taken over by commercialism, and exploited by every marketing
schmuck and his brother, and technology vendors are all too happy to
help them out.
Regards,
Chip Ciammaichella - ch...@raton.com
Raton Chamber & Economic Development Council
http://www.raton.com/
Please enjoy my original Christmas stories
http://www.raton.com/~chip/chipfile.htm
--
Arjun Ray
In <GRAYC.97D...@btm0qt.se.bel.alcatel.be>,
gr...@btm0qt.se.bel.alcatel.be (Chris Gray) writes:
| But OK, I'll bite: it's hyperlinks and the URL principle?
Bingo. Score two geek points.
:ar
Arjun Ray
In <66h5v2$b...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
| In article <3488b762....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
| |> In <669988$s...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
| |> | In article <34876fe8....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
| Seriously: While I understand the need for precise language, and enjoy
| it when I see it, I don't think it serves a discussion to slow its
| progress to the pace of someone's ability to learn the language.
Or someone's willingness to unravel "maddening webs of words". (A
phrase due to Schopenhauer, describing the work of the greatest master
of the genre. See, e.g., <URL:http://www.friesian.com/hegel.htm>.)
| It was clear enough from the several passes made at the same target just
| what he was aiming at.
Actually, it was clear what he should have been aiming at, to retain
relevance. My mistake was in supposing, more than momentarily, that he
might have been bringing more into the discussion. (My fault for not
knowing better; I had, after all, seen one his earliest efforts:
[From <URL:news:3433DD46...@dircon.co.uk>, posted 2-Oct-97]
: Whilst Netscape and IE are invaluable trailblazers for the development
: of html, [etc. etc.]
I'm sure he had no idea how many bogosity alarms he tripped with this
Osmotically Correct encomium. Ciwah regulars may remember the phrase
"crashing into the brush", from Tom Neff more than two years ago:-))
| |> Is there an example of a Disagreement Focused On An Issue In Design
| |> Over Spatial Relationships, which are (emphatically) Dynamic With The
| |> Web, When Considering The Needs Etc. Etc.?
| |>
| |> [The more I look at this, the more I'm reminded of what a friend in
| |> college used to call "poetry": tendentious verbiage calculated to
| |> obfuscate what could be a simple point -- and perhaps thus magnify its
| |> implied significance in the minds of the unwary.]
|
| I resent that. All the poetry I ever studied was composed entirely
| of sentence fragments fired onto the page by an old blunderbuss.
|
| Problem is, your friend's definition still applies....
And now, thanks to Dogbert, we can have this kind of stuff automated:
<URL:http://umweb1.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/duh/bin/ms_gen/ms2.cgi>
| The only need that I'm aware of is the need to make absolute best use of
| the tools at hand. This implies knowing what they're for -- which is more
| than can be said for me when I started doing this stuff. And I'm afraid
| that in this case it my be relatively safe to assume that this experience
| has been shared by a great many "Web Designers" working today.
That's a fair summary of this threadline.
| |> | 1) Immediacy. I create something, locate it on a web server. It
| |> | now available from one end of the Net to the other, so to speak.
| |>
| |> That has always been true of the Internet. (It is not *characteristic*
| |> of the Web alone. Something else is, but I'm waiting for somebody else
| |> to identify it.)
|
| Maybe I should have used a better description than "immediacy." I'm
| not sure what it would be, mind you. The protocol is lightweight,
| the implementation quite simple,
Umm, maybe not. TCP is a rather poor basis for the one-shot stateless
transactions in HTTP (or Gopher.) Building some of the better features
of FTP into HTTP has taken well over three years. (And even so, there
isn't much hope that the, ahem, advanced browsers will get it right.)
It's also important to remember that implementing the WWW has been
characterized as deploying a suite of protocols.
| the mark up language is only slightly less than child's play.
That's the common impression, yes. Definitely, tag salad is "easy".
| Worse yet, I can install MS FrontPage and MS Personal Web Server and
| have an approximation of a website up and running inside of an hour.
| Why cook when you can microwave?
But this was more your point #2 ("low cost"), no? It's cheap to toss
tag salad:-)
| We all know that the answer to that is simple: it's easy to do something
| far better in only slightly more time. As a bonus, people might actually
| respect your ability to do it.
You can have it done fast.
You can have it done cheap.
You can have it done right.
Pick any two.
| |> We've come quite a bit away from the original contention, which was
| |> something about the dynamism (dynamicity?) of spatial relationships
| |> making the Web an extraordinary and exciting medium etc. etc. But
| |> we're not particularly close to any technological features specific to
| |> the Web. "Immediacy", "low cost", and "smallness" are all evaluations
| |> in relation to a more fundamental set of facts.
|
| Statelessness is of course the final and "dynamic" factor.
I don't know about "dynamic"[*], but I would call it a limiting
factor. Since there is no "natural" (i.e. technologically robust by
design) way to maintain state on the Web, any application requiring
state maintenance is *at best* a kludge. Caveat Murphy's Law.
[*] It's a buzzword of long standing: there was a time when "it's
static" was about the most annihilating criticism one could level
against anything one happened to dislike, and "it's dynamic" was
similarly the most enthusiastic endorsement -- and everybody kinda
sorta grokked the drift of what one was kinda sorta getting at...
| The contract between the server and the client has little more depth
| than someone standing in the back of a bread truck and tossing a loaf
| every time someone hands him a coin.
Besides statelessness, there is one other fundamental technologically
limiting factor: asynchrony. This is in fact inherent in the TCP/IP
suite over packet-switched networks, and it impinges in two ways:
(a) events occur asynchronously, and thus cannot be reliably
coordinated. (Q: "How do I specify the order in which images are
loaded?" A: "You can't. Browsers don't even try, for very good
reasons.")
(b) TCP guarantees eventual, *not* timely, delivery of a data stream
in sequence: the infrastructure can't and doesn't support a *rate* of
delivery. (Q: "Will streaming audio and video work well over the WAN?"
A: "Only if everybody else let's you have the Internet to yourself.")
All the feelgood wofflegab about the web being some protean,
universal, omni-enabling Mother Of All Media and so forth and so on
and so on and so forth, is a crock. Also, a fine bogosity trigger.
| The fact that the server doesn't much care where the content
| is going, how much content is going there, how it gets there, or
| most importantly, what happens to it when it arrives... All of
| these things are what conspire to create a situation that might
| have made Tristan Tzara and the rest of the Dadaists happy campers
| indeed.
Yup. The Web is about clients pulling, not servers pushing. The
available technologies enable appropriately. Push all you want, it's a
pull medium.
<URL:http://www.around.com/push.html>
:ar
Chris Gray
In article <s81zzni...@plato.ansa.co.uk> Toby Speight
<Toby.S...@digitivity.com> writes:
>
> Chris> Chris Gray <URL:mailto:gr...@btm0qt.se.bel.alcatel.be>
>
> > In <URL:news:GRAYC.97D...@btm0qt.se.bel.alcatel.be>, Chris
> > wrote:
>
> Chris> Hiss boo. Now everybody has to guess what card Arjun is holding
> Chris> behind his back, given only that it is Characteristic Of The Web
> Chris> Alone. A psychiatrist I know tormented a Compuserve forum for
> Chris> weeks on end by asking for the roots of love, adding that he
> Chris> already knew the answer: when he finally revealed it, almost no
> Chris> one was happy. :)
>
> And now Chris won't tell us what it was. If you can't beat 'em, join
> 'em, eh Chris?
Not fair!
The killer in Arjun's article was
ar>That has always been true of the Internet. (It is not *characteristic*
ar>of the Web alone. Something else is, but I'm waiting for somebody else
ar>to identify it.)
Did I say I was waiting for someone else to explain the origins of love?
Nah. Just another pathetic attempt to draw me into an off-topic discussion.
:P
--
Chris Gray
Chris Gray
In article <348c991f....@news.nyct.net> ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray)
writes:
> In <GRAYC.97D...@btm0qt.se.bel.alcatel.be>,
Wow thanks Arjun i'll wear them to the contractors' xmas dinner tonite &
then if ne1 sez you cant come in coz this is 4 geeks only i'll show them
my 2 geek points & then theyll feel really stoopid coz they werent going 2
let me in and ive got 2 of the best geek points in the bizness
:)
--
Chris Gray
Kurt J. Lanza
> >universal, omni-enabling Mother Of All Media and so forth and so on
> >and so on and so forth, is a crock. Also, a fine bogosity trigger.
>
> compared to the "Borg" of recent trekkie fame. Sooner or later it will
> absorb other electronic media. Notice I said electronic, as I believe
> (and hope) that nothing will ever absorb the printed page. Hope I
> didn't trip your trigger. :-)
> >
> >| is going, how much content is going there, how it gets there, or
> >| most importantly, what happens to it when it arrives... All of
> >| these things are what conspire to create a situation that might
> >| have made Tristan Tzara and the rest of the Dadaists happy campers
> >| indeed.
> >
> >Yup. The Web is about clients pulling, not servers pushing. The
> >available technologies enable appropriately. Push all you want, it's a
> >pull medium.
>
> default enabling of channels in IE4.
Umm... That's still "pull". Granted IE4 is doing the pulling with no
help from the user, but it's still "pull". Note that some service
providers are going to lengths to leave IE4 hits out of their
statisitics for this very reason -- no one buying adverstising wants to
pay for hits which no eyeball sees because it's just the software doing
the hiotting, not aperson.
[ rant snipped ]
--
Kurt J. Lanza
k...@infor.com
Dan McGarry
In article <348ca045....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
|> In <66h5v2$b...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
|> | In article <3488b762....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
|> | |> In <669988$s...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
|> | Maybe I should have used a better description than "immediacy." I'm
|> | not sure what it would be, mind you. The protocol is lightweight,
|> | the implementation quite simple,
|>
|> Umm, maybe not. TCP is a rather poor basis for the one-shot stateless
|> transactions in HTTP (or Gopher.) Building some of the better features
|> of FTP into HTTP has taken well over three years. (And even so, there
|> isn't much hope that the, ahem, advanced browsers will get it right.)
|> It's also important to remember that implementing the WWW has been
|> characterized as deploying a suite of protocols.
Uh, Okay. I would rather not follow you down that path too far
(my understanding of TCP is worse than poor). Suffice it so say that
*for the rest of us* <grin>, implementing a web server is a darn sight
easier than setting up a database server, or authoring a multi-media
CD-ROM.
As to the other protocols: I have yet to decide whether I'm left yawning
by many of the streaming, real-time, partly pushy new things because:
a) The implementations are less than compelling;
b) The necessary bandwidth just doesn't exist(*)
c) Nobody (myself included) knows what they're for.
What I do know is that HTTP delivering hypertext grabbed me, and a great
many others, on a visceral level -- a level that is only slowly allowing
itself to be explained in something approaching coherent language.
[[(*)Bandwith, my Aunt Fanny. I worked for an ISP in the Canadian Arctic that
served over 700 people with a mere 56 Kbps line. The bandwidth was
packaged properly and delivered with care, there was no reason why our
customers should have seen anything appreciably different from the performance
of many a southern pipe. Many, in fact, remarked on the ways that ours was
superior to a couple of larger sourthern ISPs. You would have a hard time
convincing me that the answer to current congestion problems is to run
fibre to every person's door.]]
Before I start sounding like I've been under a rock for the last several
years, let me say that my background is in theatre and literature, not
computers. I had never even turned one on before I reached 25. I'm
approaching this issue, therefore, from the perspective of "the rest
of us", or more to the point, with my designer cap on.
To this end, I prefer to remain naive about certain things (which is not
to say ignorant, BTW), and to approach them, if not for the first time,
then as if for the first time.
|> | the mark up language is only slightly less than child's play.
|>
|> That's the common impression, yes. Definitely, tag salad is "easy".
Well, a DTD can be ingested in an afternoon, referred to for a week,
retained in very little time. Writing a properly structured document
will never be an easy operation (simple perhaps, but never easy), but
doing so using HTML is not that much more difficult than doing it using
other means.
I'm currently developing materials in FrameMaker + SGML which have to
have a life in HTML as well. I've found that because HTML is the final
destination for my material, I've actually profited by distilling the
mark up down to a few reliable elements. The format of the final document
will be much clearer -- simpler, too -- than the material I was handed
at the outset.
|> | Worse yet, I can install MS FrontPage and MS Personal Web Server and
|> | have an approximation of a website up and running inside of an hour.
|> | Why cook when you can microwave?
|>
|> But this was more your point #2 ("low cost"), no? It's cheap to toss
|> tag salad:-)
Saves time. Costs less:
"Tastes great."
"Less filling."
"Tastes great."
"Less filling."
|> | Statelessness is of course the final and "dynamic" factor.
|>
|> I don't know about "dynamic"[*], but I would call it a limiting
|> factor. Since there is no "natural" (i.e. technologically robust by
|> design) way to maintain state on the Web, any application requiring
|> state maintenance is *at best* a kludge. Caveat Murphy's Law.
I wish I had more energy and time. Then I could do more with a term
than simply wrap quotation marks around it and hope that others would
see I did not use it entirely in earnest.
Imagine the display of HTML marked-up content on a large number of
monitors (hardware and OSes implicitly attendant). Imagine taking a
snap of each one, then creating a rotoscope from these images. Spin
the canister and the effect would be as jumpy as the opening credits
to a certain Baltimore cop show.
In the sense that some mothers need to see their child displayed through
everybody else's eyes, a designer tries to imagine how to create
material on the WWW that at least resembles itself from one instantiation
to the next. She tries two ways:
1) Fixing (in the mafia sense of the word) the mark-up and the UA.
2) Arranging the components such that each element is not only complete
within itself, but completes the document as well.
|> [*] It's a buzzword of long standing: there was a time when "it's
|> static" was about the most annihilating criticism one could level
|> against anything one happened to dislike, and "it's dynamic" was
|> similarly the most enthusiastic endorsement -- and everybody kinda
|> sorta grokked the drift of what one was kinda sorta getting at...
Now "dynamic website" means JavaScript and animated GIFs....
|> | The contract between the server and the client has little more depth
|> | than someone standing in the back of a bread truck and tossing a loaf
|> | every time someone hands him a coin.
|>
|> Besides statelessness, there is one other fundamental technologically
|> limiting factor: asynchrony.
[description of asynchronous transmission snipped]
It's easy, from a certain standpoint, to see these issues as limitations.
There are aesthetic precedents which can be referenced for this kind
of situation. Theatre, according to Lope de Vega, can consist of nothing
more than "four boards and a passion." Art begins with a text string
passed form one term to the next, and goes from there. The nature of the
medium informs the nature of the art. England in the 16th Century had
some guy who filled theatres (the Next Big Thing at the time); we have
Steven Spielberg.
Jenny Holzer might have got closest to what I imagine the art of the Web
will be when she started tacking up posters randomly throughout Manhattan.
My mention of the Dadaists was not entirely wihtout purpose. While the utter
futility of life has yet to achieve general consensus, their embracing of
randomness and the fragmentation of elements that followed them can be
well applied.
I won't attempt to impose this personal bias against linear presentation
on the entire Web, but I think the top-left bottom-right motion of the
Web "page" is, well, tired. Furthermore, attempts to achieve it work against
most of what we're talking about here. Far better to break things down;
combine several elements into a single "page" if you must, but make them
capable of standing alone, at least.
I'd also like to see these protocols inform a less than linear progression
through complex materials as well. Nobody (that I know, anyway) reads the
online manual from start to finish. So why do we insist on putting Next
and Previous, First and Last links on every page?
I was quite excited by Jakob Nielsen's suggestion that the document object
model should contain objects larger than the individual document. I see no
reason why we should not be able to abstract the apparent disorder of the
Net into a fuzzy space. Imagine being able to navigate by inference.
Now consider what visual combinations (and monstrosities) are possible when
we loosen the definition of design. Allow a UA to "know best" how to
display visual elements of an HTML document. Allow the browser (human? ai?)
to determine context, and to, finally, author the "document" (but not
necessarily the content).
I can hear some of you saying that the above is already true to a degree.
My point exactly. We should push content and presentational design further
down that path, rather than straight-jacket it back into a "printed" format.
|> All the feelgood wofflegab about the web being some protean,
|> universal, omni-enabling Mother Of All Media and so forth and so on
|> and so on and so forth, is a crock. Also, a fine bogosity trigger.
The Web, no. The Internet, YES!
8^)
|> | The fact that the server doesn't much care where the content
|> | is going, how much content is going there, how it gets there, or
|> | most importantly, what happens to it when it arrives... All of
|> | these things are what conspire to create a situation that might
|> | have made Tristan Tzara and the rest of the Dadaists happy campers
|> | indeed.
|>
|> Yup. The Web is about clients pulling, not servers pushing. The
|> available technologies enable appropriately. Push all you want, it's a
|> pull medium.
|>
|> <URL:http://www.around.com/push.html>
Very good piece, if somewhat simplistic. I stayed on to read his little
excoriation of MS. Good for a giggle.
Limitation to client pull right now is that, for the most part,
clients only pull from one server at a time. This, again, is very linear.
It will be some time before Alta Vista and Yahoo can help us on that front,
though....
--
Dan McGarry
Dan McGarry
In article <66imgj$d...@moon.pepperdine.edu>, "Chip Ciammaichella" <tha...@nospam.com> writes:
|>
|> Arjun Ray wrote in message <348ca045....@news.nyct.net>...
|> >Yup. The Web is about clients pulling, not servers pushing. The
|> >available technologies enable appropriately. Push all you want, it's a
|> >pull medium.
|>
|> For now, but not if Gates & Co. have their way. Case in point: the
|> default enabling of channels in IE4. IMHO MS, as well as a great many
|> commercial entities, are banking on their ability to "train" the growing
|> number of novice users to the concept that channels and push are "the
|> way it should be." Just as we tolerate broadcast advertising, they
|> expect future users to tolerate pushed ads into their PCs/terminals.
|> It's incrementalism, just like the battle against tobacco, guns, etc.
|> have been for many years. Like it or not, it seems the web is fast
|> being taken over by commercialism, and exploited by every marketing
|> schmuck and his brother, and technology vendors are all too happy to
|> help them out.
Fine and dandy, but the stuff we get from these push "channels" is,
by and large, crap. Unimaginative, chintzy little flying banners
of coloured text, marching in lock-step with a tin-pot midi,
right down the middle of your screen.
Okay, I *might* be overstating it... but I don't think so.
My experience with channels lasted about 15 minutes. It's many
times more boring than TV, and I have a thousand more places to
click away to.
People who sit down at a computer know that they are expected to
be in control. Few people feel in control at first, but that does
nothing to change the assumption that the computer wants input.
Push just can't allow that, can it? In its most naked form, it really
is TV, and the keyboard and mouse little better than a *very*
complex (composite) clicker thing.
Cattle may fight their way up the ramp to the abbatoir, but they do
it to get away from the hell that was the transport truck. I have yet
to see them hurry from one truck to the next.
The article that Arjun pointed out in his post, says (I believe rightly)
that push is trying to be what television is evolving into. There is
no demonstrated need for anything similar on the , dare I say it,
Traditional Web. A company I contract for recently completed some
software that effectively puts a TV station inside a box. With a
little extension, it can build channels of content from a
straightforward UI. This is more the type of place where I see
some kind of push thing appearing: A user programs her viewing week
into a set-top box, then waits for the TV to come on at the
appointed hour, featuring the requested show.
(Just think what that will do to season finales and premieres....)
--
Dan McGarry
Dave Williams
Definitely close, but the site is usable without images if you go to the
"Driving Instructions" area. Assuming the page is valid (which I don't
know) or at least works with all browsers, a Lynx user could use MapQuest
to plan a trip without having to try to download and view the images
separately.
In fact, except for the maps themselves, every single graphic is
superfluous AFAICS (not that I think they shouldn't have them, they just
don't need them.
IMO, the quest continues.
In article <66dajc$r...@moon.pepperdine.edu>, "Chip Ciammaichella"
<ch...@raton.com> wrote:
> Perhaps a map would qualify as presentational content? ie. MapQuest
>
> Regards,
>
> Chip Ciammaichella - ch...@raton.com
> Raton Chamber & Economic Development Council
> http://www.raton.com/
> Please enjoy my original Christmas stories
> http://www.raton.com/~chip/chipfile.htm
> --
>
>
>
> Alan J. Flavell wrote in message ...
>
> >I can't speak for Arjun, but I have no doubt that it "exists", indeed I
> >suppose I could find examples of it if I tried. I just haven't
> >recognised it yet in the WWW pages that you and others have offered as
> >specimens. The interesting part of this discussion is to get an idea
> >from their examples just what it is that the proponents consider to be
> >essential presentation, to the extent that they would point-blank refuse
> >to allow any reader to access their information devoid of the exact
> >presentation that they demand. As yet I've not been convinced by their
> >examples, including yours, OK?
Dave Williams "A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the
IN Jersey ground. As a journalist, you are expected to
www.injersey.com know the difference." - UPI Stylebook
Chip Ciammaichella
Chip Ciammaichella
No argument, Dan. I wasn't trying to advocate "push", but rather giving
my perception of where some would "like us to go today" or tommorrow.
:-)
--
Chip
Dan McGarry wrote in message <66k0up$c...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>...
>
>Fine and dandy, but the stuff we get from these push "channels" is,
>by and large, crap. Unimaginative, chintzy little flying banners
>of coloured text, marching in lock-step with a tin-pot midi,
>right down the middle of your screen.
>
>Okay, I *might* be overstating it... but I don't think so.
You're not. :-)
Eric Bohlman
Chip Ciammaichella <tha...@nospam.com> wrote:
: Perhaps a map would qualify as presentational content? ie. MapQuest http://www.mapquest.com/
I think we're falling into the trap of defining "presentational" as
"graphical" or "visual" as opposed to "textual." A street map be very
well be inherently graphical, but there are still an enormous number of
degrees of freedom in how it can be presented. A street map is *not*, as
far as I'm concerned, inherently tied to the use of specific colors to
represent communities (remember the joke about the visitor to Russia who
was surprised that the ground wasn't red?), specific pixel widths of lines
to represent streets, specific display dimensions, or anything similar.
That isn't to say that it can be rearranged arbitrarily: meaning is lost
if it's transformed in a way that doesn't preserve distances, for
example. But it's not an example of something that can only be presented
in a single manner.
Arjun Ray
In <66jueq$a...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
| In article <348ca045....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
| |> In <66h5v2$b...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
| |> | In article <3488b762....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
| |> | |> In <669988$s...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
| |> | Maybe I should have used a better description than "immediacy." [...]
| |> | The protocol is lightweight, the implementation quite simple,
| |>
| |> Umm, maybe not. TCP is a rather poor basis for the one-shot stateless
| |> transactions in HTTP (or Gopher.) [...]
| |> It's also important to remember that implementing the WWW has been
| |> characterized as deploying a suite of protocols.
|
| Uh, Okay. I would rather not follow you down that path too far
| (my understanding of TCP is worse than poor).
As counterintuitive as this might sound, HTTP is actually a rather
heavyweight protocol for one-shot transactions. (Also, all the major
"transfer protocols" rather perversely have the server, i.e. the
likely choke point in a distributed system, bear the brunt of the
resource cost in dismantling TCP connections. Which is to say,
protocols like HTTP arguably are "unfairly" cheap for the client.)
| As to the other protocols:
Actually, I had an early presentation by TBL in mind:
<URL:http://www.w3.org/Talks/General.html>
These days, considering how many people suffer from the delusion that
anything and everything is supposed to be "HTML", it's no surprise
that the Web is not only misunderstood but also misrepresented.
| I have yet to decide whether I'm left yawning
| by many of the streaming, real-time, partly pushy new things because:
|
| a) The implementations are less than compelling;
| b) The necessary bandwidth just doesn't exist(*)
| c) Nobody (myself included) knows what they're for.
Those aren't protocols. They're toys. Gimcrackery.
| What I do know is that HTTP delivering hypertext grabbed me, and a great
| many others, on a visceral level -- a level that is only slowly allowing
| itself to be explained in something approaching coherent language.
Please try. There are historians who would like to know.
| [[(*)Bandwith, my Aunt Fanny. [...] You would have a hard time
| convincing me that the answer to current congestion problems is to run
| fibre to every person's door.]]
You'd be surprised at the number of people who subscribe to the
fallacy. It's the "easy" answer, and it's the "Push" crowd (drooling
at the fatness of the pipe to *your* computer) who mainly pay the
journos' bills. 'Nuff said.
| |> | the mark up language is only slightly less than child's play.
| |>
| |> That's the common impression, yes. Definitely, tag salad is "easy".
|
| Well, a DTD can be ingested in an afternoon, referred to for a week,
| retained in very little time. Writing a properly structured document
| will never be an easy operation (simple perhaps, but never easy), but
| doing so using HTML is not that much more difficult than doing it using
| other means.
The real problem has been well known for a long time. It's the general
lack of author's tools. (Well, the lack of *cheap* tools.) A widely
available cheap editor supporting structural markup early in the
history of the Web could have made a remarkable difference. The lack
created the market for bogosity generators, just what bozos would need
to toss tag-salad all the faster into the lo-tech processors written
for them:-)
| |> Besides statelessness, there is one other fundamental technologically
| |> limiting factor: asynchrony.
|
| [description of asynchronous transmission snipped]
|
| It's easy, from a certain standpoint, to see these issues as limitations.
It doesn't matter. Every technology has limitations. The point is that
different technologies have different limitations: therein lies the
scope for choice and efficiency. The ends constrain the means; many
ends simply don't make sense on the Web (though some of them may still
make sense on the Internet.)
| My mention of the Dadaists was not entirely wihtout purpose. While the utter
| futility of life has yet to achieve general consensus, their embracing of
| randomness and the fragmentation of elements that followed them can be
| well applied.
|
| I won't attempt to impose this personal bias against linear presentation
| on the entire Web, but I think the top-left bottom-right motion of the
| Web "page" is, well, tired. Furthermore, attempts to achieve it work against
| most of what we're talking about here. Far better to break things down;
| combine several elements into a single "page" if you must, but make them
| capable of standing alone, at least.
Even better if the links between them were processed intelligently,
no?
| I'd also like to see these protocols inform a less than linear progression
| through complex materials as well. Nobody (that I know, anyway) reads the
| online manual from start to finish. So why do we insist on putting Next
| and Previous, First and Last links on every page?
Because the software so many of you, ahem, "optimize for", is too
stupid to figure out such links automatically? Now, tell me about way
cool mondo rad leading edge advanced technology for the majority hype
hoopla hallelujah. (Get behind the wheel of a Ford or Toyota and tell
yourself that you're in possesion of the latest and greatest leading
edge in automotive technology. The lesson behind the absurdity is that
the majority *never* has leading edge advanced technology. You've
invoked the Dadaists. I'll mention the Surrealists:-))
| I was quite excited by Jakob Nielsen's suggestion that the document object
| model should contain objects larger than the individual document. I see no
| reason why we should not be able to abstract the apparent disorder of the
| Net into a fuzzy space. Imagine being able to navigate by inference.
It all starts with links, and the intelligent processing thereof. The
monkeys scratching themselves in glee that they can have blinking
animated gifs marquee across your computer screen, however, haven't
the slightest interest.
:ar
Arjun Ray
In <66imgj$d...@moon.pepperdine.edu>,
| Arjun Ray wrote in message <348ca045....@news.nyct.net>...
| >All the feelgood wofflegab about the web being some protean,
| >universal, omni-enabling Mother Of All Media and so forth and so on
| >and so on and so forth, is a crock. Also, a fine bogosity trigger.
|
| I think the web (more likely it's successors) can be compared to the
| "Borg" of recent trekkie fame. Sooner or later it will absorb other
| electronic media. Notice I said electronic, as I believe (and hope)
| that nothing will ever absorb the printed page.
"Push" at 11?
| Like it or not, it seems the web is fast being taken over by
| commercialism, and exploited by every marketing schmuck and his brother,
| and technology vendors are all too happy to help them out.
There's a lot more to the Web than the gospels according to Marc and
Bill.
:ar
David Steuber
On 09 Dec 1997 14:24:09 GMT, gr...@btm0qt.se.bel.alcatel.be (Chris
Gray) wrote:
% In article <348c991f....@news.nyct.net> ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray)
% writes:
%
% > In <GRAYC.97D...@btm0qt.se.bel.alcatel.be>,
% > gr...@btm0qt.se.bel.alcatel.be (Chris Gray) writes:
% >
% > | But OK, I'll bite: it's hyperlinks and the URL principle?
% >
% > Bingo. Score two geek points.
%
% Wow thanks Arjun i'll wear them to the contractors' xmas dinner tonite &
% then if ne1 sez you cant come in coz this is 4 geeks only i'll show them
% my 2 geek points & then theyll feel really stoopid coz they werent going 2
% let me in and ive got 2 of the best geek points in the bizness
Talk about acid reflux! Not that it wasn't dzrvd.
--
David Steuber
The astigmatic, myopic visionary
http://www.david-steuber.com
To reply by e-mail, replace trashcan with david.
------------------------------------------------
Notice: Bulk e-mail advertisers may send their
ads to tras...@david-steuber.com. These adds
will be displayed on my website for a fee of
$500. Sending advertising to trashcan constitutes
acceptance of this legally binding contract.
------------------------------------------------
Chip Ciammaichella
Obviously, and thank goodness. That does not make them any less capable
of effecting major change, the benefit of which is open to debate.
BTW, I sure am glad that you use simple words when replying to me. I
regretfully admit that your extensive vocabulary boggles me at times.
:-)
--
Chip
Arjun Ray wrote in message <348e1769....@news.nyct.net>...
Steve Davis
I had hoped that Arjun would respect the fact that I was taking his
observations seriously enough to attempt to explain the value of non-verbal
communication, which he declared to be beyond his capability to appreciate. An
assertion that I find difficult to believe. If he were genuinely interested in
the response, he would have awaited the full response. However, instead he wrote:
Arjun Ray wrote:
>
> In <66h5v2$b...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
> | In article <3488b762....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
> | |> In <669988$s...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
> | |> | In article <34876fe8....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
>
> | Seriously: While I understand the need for precise language, and enjoy
> | it when I see it, I don't think it serves a discussion to slow its
> | progress to the pace of someone's ability to learn the language.
>
> Or someone's willingness to unravel "maddening webs of words".
A pathetic side-swipe. It is apparent that your mind is fixed; you are not
interested in learning from a debate; and your interest in participating in
this newsgroup is to "win" arguments, and justify your worldview *to yourself*.
> | It was clear enough from the several passes made at the same target just
> | what he was aiming at.
>
> Actually, it was clear what he should have been aiming at, to retain
> relevance. My mistake was in supposing, more than momentarily, that he
> might have been bringing more into the discussion. (My fault for not
> knowing better; I had, after all, seen one his earliest efforts:
>
> [From <URL:news:3433DD46...@dircon.co.uk>, posted 2-Oct-97]
> : Whilst Netscape and IE are invaluable trailblazers for the development
> : of html, [etc. etc.]
Oh good. Let's quote out of context. If the reader wishes to make a judgement,
I suggest that she read the original post. I stand by the principles of the
value of NS/IE that I wrote there; Nobody to my knowledge has refuted them.
> I'm sure he had no idea how many bogosity alarms he tripped with this
> Osmotically Correct encomium.
Put a bag on it, Arjun. Just because I'm silent, it doesn't mean I'm not
reading the group. If you are you suggesting that my argument is bogus, please
demonstrate definitively. Or even do us a favour and tell us your precise
position on the use of design, instead of merely carping at the attempts of
others to focus on the issue.
> | |> [The more I look at this, the more I'm reminded of what a friend in
> | |> college used to call "poetry": tendentious verbiage calculated to
> | |> obfuscate what could be a simple point -- and perhaps thus magnify its
> | |> implied significance in the minds of the unwary.]
> |
> | I resent that. All the poetry I ever studied was composed entirely
> | of sentence fragments fired onto the page by an old blunderbuss.
> |
> | Problem is, your friend's definition still applies....
>
> And now, thanks to Dogbert, we can have this kind of stuff automated:
>
"tendentious verbiage"??? Dogbert???? Arjun, you are more of a boor than I
thought possible.
Think about this: Some aspects of the world are as yet beyond the scope of
reductionist argument. It is *possible* that some aspects of the world will
ever remain so. And, since you mention it, good poetry generates particular
emotions in the reader that could not be adequately expressed in any other
way. Try reading some with an open mind, and then take a moment to be aware of
what the effect is upon you. To claim that creative language has no place is
to ignore or even deny a whole world of cultural pursuit.
HTML is a human language. It was invented by humans, for human authors, to
enable communication between humans. Like any language it is subject to
cultural influences. See 'HTML 4.0 Frameset' if you need convincing of that.
Whether you like it or not this language will continue to evolve in a manner
that is beyond your capability (or anyone else's) to control.
AFAICS you are hiding behind a brick wall of dogmatism; your unwarranted
persistence and methods of debate reveals the fact that you often find this
self-inflicted prison an uncomfortable place to be.
Steve Davis
Chris Gray
In article <3495fdd8....@news.zippo.com> tras...@david-steuber.com
(David Steuber) writes:
> Talk about acid reflux! Not that it wasn't dzrvd.
Oops, looks like I omitted something essential:
:)
--
Chris Gray
Veronica Karlsson
Arjun Ray wrote:
[ 8< ]
> It doesn't matter. Every technology has limitations. The point is that
> different technologies have different limitations: therein lies the
> scope for choice and efficiency. The ends constrain the means; many
> ends simply don't make sense on the Web (though some of them may still
> make sense on the Internet.)
>
Hmmm.... lets see if I've got this right...
The Internet
------------
A bunch of computers, of all possible kinds, tied together with cupper
cables, glass fibers and little curly radio waves that float through the
air. The fact that they are all tied together means that as long as they
all "speak the same language" they will all be able to communicate with
each other.
Email
-----
A way to spread information to one person or a small but well defined
group of people on the Internet.
Newsgroups
----------
A way to spread information to an imagined "place" on the Internet where
those who are interested can go and read it (this "place" is in reality
a large number of places, all containing roughly the same information).
The Web
-------
A way to spread information on the Internet by placing files in one
specific place and hoping that somebody will come and look at them. Some
of these files are of a type called "html" and contain links to other
files. These other files could be anywhere on the rest of the web and of
any type.
Other Applications
------------------
There are many other applications that are possible on the web and not
just the three that I have mentioned above.
[ 8< ]
--
:)
Irebavpn Xneyffba
( r93...@fz.yhgu.fr uggc://jjj.yhqq.yhgu.fr/~ix/ )
Jude Crouch
In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Eric Bohlman <eboh...@netcom.com> wrote:
> Chip Ciammaichella <tha...@nospam.com> wrote:
> : Perhaps a map would qualify as presentational content? ie. MapQuest http://www.mapquest.com/
> I think we're falling into the trap of defining "presentational" as
> "graphical" or "visual" as opposed to "textual." A street map be very
> well be inherently graphical, but there are still an enormous number of
> degrees of freedom in how it can be presented. A street map is *not*, as
> far as I'm concerned, inherently tied to the use of specific colors to
> represent communities (remember the joke about the visitor to Russia who
> was surprised that the ground wasn't red?), specific pixel widths of lines
> to represent streets, specific display dimensions, or anything similar.
> That isn't to say that it can be rearranged arbitrarily:
> meaning is lost
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> if it's transformed in a way that doesn't preserve distances, for
> example. But it's not an example of something that can only be presented
> in a single manner.
Meaning may be changed...
An example is artistic representation of the London Subway System.
Very good to find which train to get on, worthless to determine
the distance or amount of time it will take you to get there.
Jude
--
Jude Crouch (jcr...@pobox.com) - Computing since 1967!
Crouch Enterprises - Telecom, Internet & Unix Consulting
Oak Park, IL 708-848-0145 URL: http://www.pobox.com/~jcrouch
Dan McGarry
In article <348e06f7....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
|> In <66jueq$a...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
[snippage]
|> | I won't attempt to impose this personal bias against linear presentation
|> | on the entire Web, but I think the top-left bottom-right motion of the
|> | Web "page" is, well, tired. Furthermore, attempts to achieve it work against
|> | most of what we're talking about here. Far better to break things down;
|> | combine several elements into a single "page" if you must, but make them
|> | capable of standing alone, at least.
|>
|> Even better if the links between them were processed intelligently,
|> no?
Now that's downright evil: opening that can of worms like that with one
little sentence just dripping with false innocence... <grin>
Yeah, I was doing some blue sky thinking as I drifted off last night,
and found myself wondering what would happen if we didn't bother cramming a
<META> element full of arbitrary key words and force-feeding them to
search engines. What if we could simply highlight pertinent passages
inline (a thesis, a conclusion, a critical quote) by embracing them
with HTML tags.
Multimedia content would be much more difficult to qualify (hence the
continuing importance of of the T in HTML), but images, for example,
might be made to submit to pattern recognition software trained to
search for similar colour schemes, shapes, text in graphical form....
At some point, the way we describe and, more importantly, deploy
HTML documents could change fundamentally. The assumption of sole
ownership or authorship might not be made so easily if only the
salient passages of one's paper were transmitted, to be
incorporated into a larger composite document at some distant
client's request.
I'd be interested to see what happens to the 20th century obsession
with personality as Art, as individual documents are lost entirely to
the tight focus which till now it has been their right to demand. What
can be said of a creator whose works only achieve significance (if
such it can be called) when they operate as only a small parcel of
patchwork on the larger quilt of Art/Information/Data collated from
the Web by some assiduous agent?
How does one "design" for that?
I suppose the more pressing issue is how one generates the critical
mass required to provide proof of concept compelling (and yes, easy)
enough to convince the dancing GIF banner crowd that there's a better
way?
--
Dan McGarry
Dave Paulsen
In article <66jueq$a...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca says...
>
>on the entire Web, but I think the top-left bottom-right motion of the
>Web "page" is, well, tired. Furthermore, attempts to achieve it work against
>most of what we're talking about here. Far better to break things down;
>combine several elements into a single "page" if you must, but make them
>capable of standing alone, at least.
>
still important. Unless you're dealing with "sound bite" quantities, having to
click through a dozen pages to get the full set of information, that could have
been presented on two pages, at most, is something I just find irritating.
The top to bottom, left to right--while not universal--presentation is a form
that users understand. Properly related hyperlinks from these pages allow users
to feed themselves information in a logical manner that suits them. Of course,
I realize this doesn't apply on sites that aren't based on content :-)
--
_dave_(seemingly obligatory and definitely bandwidth wasting .sig)
Dan McGarry
In article <348e06f7....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
|> In <66jueq$a...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
[snip!]
|> | I was quite excited by Jakob Nielsen's suggestion that the document object
|> | model should contain objects larger than the individual document. I see no
|> | reason why we should not be able to abstract the apparent disorder of the
|> | Net into a fuzzy space. Imagine being able to navigate by inference.
|>
|> It all starts with links, and the intelligent processing thereof. The
|> monkeys scratching themselves in glee that they can have blinking
|> animated gifs marquee across your computer screen, however, haven't
|> the slightest interest.
Something just occurred to me: How are we to define links and resources
in the context you seem to want to put them? As long as the document's
author dictates which content is a link (i.e. <A NAME="foobar"> or
merely the contents of a file, conventionally suffixed with .html),
how do we achieve any truly effective use of HTML and hypertext?
Granted, the pollyanna approach to this is to assume that author and
authority actually are derived from the same root, and trust the creator
of Web content to link where appropriate, provide structure in appropriate
format, constructed in an appropriate manner. Even in this best case, we
haven't addressed the issue that context is in the eye of the beholder.
Can HTML be extended beyond its current role as a conveyor of content
to that of a conveyor of context? Some search engines already weight
content based on the element in which a string is found (<H1>The
Future of HTML</h1> gaining greater weight than <p> ... the future
of HTML ... </p>). Can this be extended to the point where a semi-
intelligent user agent could initiate a content search with a
predefined scope using a selected element in one document as its
jumping off point?
Example: I am reading a review of a West End theatre production of
_MacB*th_. The author of the article refers to the inclusion of a scene
which scholars have largely agreed was not written by W.S. himself.
Rather than rely on the author to provide us with links (she may or
may not be aware of individual resources), how to spawn a search
which would return abstracts from a variety of related materials
in a compact form(*)?
And rather than rely on string occurrences in external documents
(i.e. history of Hecate in Roman mythology -- largely useless, but
containing the string "Hecate"), how to access reliable resources
dealing with authorship issues in Shakespeare's plays?
I'm aware that this might be a poor example, as a few moments of thought
followed by a quick visit to Alta Vista would suffice to address much
of what I'm saying. I would rather use this conjecture as the starting
point to a different approach to content markup. While in the short
term it might suffice to simply change the string one is searching for,
could a contextual application for HTML (more precisely, the nature
of hypertext link and target) not be envisioned?
A perfectly matching string stored deep in the bowels of a Usenet
post blathering on about the nature of the hypertext link might
not be of any use at all to the would-be student of Shakespearean
authorship (or anyone else for that matter <grin>). A scholarly
paper with an annotated bibliography, offering a quick
and lucid gloss of many publications on this topic, but which
does not feature this exact string, would be much more useful.
Can a useful target be inferred, therefore, from the publication
source, from the presence of "Phd" in the author's name, from a
vast number of other factors not explicitly offered as either
link or target, but which all serve to define context?
This needs more thought and elucidation, but hey, what do you want
from Usenet? <grin>
*************
(*)In the example provided, why download the entire scholarly paper
when it's the contents of the bibliography that are really important?
And more importantly, why trust the author to know how to segment
her work?
Can an implementation of the document object model be envisioned that would
allow us to gather components of other documents into a composite, rather
transitory document constructed for this purpose alone?
--
Dan McGarry
Dan McGarry
Dave Paulsen wrote in message <66n2sn$mvr$1...@texas.nwlink.com>...
>>Web "page" is, well, tired. Furthermore, attempts to achieve it work
against
>>most of what we're talking about here. Far better to break things down;
>>combine several elements into a single "page" if you must, but make them
>>capable of standing alone, at least.
>>
context is
>still important. Unless you're dealing with "sound bite" quantities, having
to
>click through a dozen pages to get the full set of information, that could
have
>been presented on two pages, at most, is something I just find irritating.
Assuming we're still using Netscape Navigator, and that the portions are
bite-sized (sorry), you would have a point. Half the problem that people
have with the Web paradigm is that they're not viewing the Web at all,
they're drifting from page to page.
Try if you can for a moment to imagine the Web outside of the context of
print media. The possible applications start to multiply when we don't
assume that the entire legacy of print publishing *must* be carried onto the
web.
>The top to bottom, left to right--while not universal--presentation is a
form
>that users understand. Properly related hyperlinks from these pages allow
users
>to feed themselves information in a logical manner that suits them. Of
course,
>I realize this doesn't apply on sites that aren't based on content :-)
I don't mean to say that people of European descent don't benefit from
having text presented to them in that format. What I do mean to say is that
top-left to bottom-right should not therefore be assumed to be the ideal
format for the presentation of linked content.
I wouldn't presume to offer *the* answer to this. The purpose of the post
was simply to suggest that this visual arrangement can sometimes do as great
a disservice to content as can an interminable list of links.
--
Dan McGarry
OverByte Software
http://www.moodindigo.com/
Roving Reporter
Having not been "blessed" with MSIE 4.0, I just wonder how that "push"
stuff works if you're using a modem???? -- Does it automatically dial while
you are sleeping and load this stuff onto your PC, or does it wait until
you dial in and then suddenly take up all this time loading stuff when
really, you'd rather be looking at something else???? -- Just wondering.
{-:
On 9 Dec 1997, Dan McGarry wrote:
>In article <66imgj$d...@moon.pepperdine.edu>, "Chip Ciammaichella" <tha...@nospam.com> writes:
>|>
>|> Arjun Ray wrote in message <348ca045....@news.nyct.net>...
>|> >Yup. The Web is about clients pulling, not servers pushing. The
>|> >available technologies enable appropriately. Push all you want, it's a
>|> >pull medium.
>|>
>|> For now, but not if Gates & Co. have their way. Case in point: the
>|> default enabling of channels in IE4. IMHO MS, as well as a great many
>|> commercial entities, are banking on their ability to "train" the growing
>|> number of novice users to the concept that channels and push are "the
>|> way it should be." Just as we tolerate broadcast advertising, they
>|> expect future users to tolerate pushed ads into their PCs/terminals.
>|> It's incrementalism, just like the battle against tobacco, guns, etc.
>|> have been for many years. Like it or not, it seems the web is fast
>|> being taken over by commercialism, and exploited by every marketing
>|> schmuck and his brother, and technology vendors are all too happy to
>|> help them out.
>
>Fine and dandy, but the stuff we get from these push "channels" is,
>by and large, crap. Unimaginative, chintzy little flying banners
>of coloured text, marching in lock-step with a tin-pot midi,
>right down the middle of your screen.
>
>Okay, I *might* be overstating it... but I don't think so.
>
>My experience with channels lasted about 15 minutes. It's many
>times more boring than TV, and I have a thousand more places to
>click away to.
**********************************************************
* Therese Shellabarger - tls...@concentric.net *
* http://www.concentric.net/~tlshell/ Shalom chaverot! *
**********************************************************
* See if I care about your opinion, the life I've led -- *
* each dawn I go forth with sword in hand, to sweep scum *
* from the decks of my battleship. Revenge at last, and *
* it be sweet, too, 'cuz now I get the girl, _not you_. *
Bill Bereza
In article <Pine.SUN.3.96.971210...@galileo.cris.com>,
Roving Reporter <Tls...@concentric.net> wrote:
>Having not been "blessed" with MSIE 4.0, I just wonder how that "push"
>stuff works if you're using a modem???? -- Does it automatically dial while
>you are sleeping and load this stuff onto your PC, or does it wait until
Yes, it can be configured to use dial-up networking and connect while
your are sleeping. Actually, the "push" in IE4.0 is more like automated-
browsing. It goes out and collects things. Some items are set to expire
or need updating at some time on a certain date.
I tried it once, and didn't really see the point in it. Why would I
want to download stuff to my computer that I'll probably never read
anyways? I have no trouble actually going to the site when I want it.
One supposed purpose for the "push" is that you can spend more time
off-line. IE would download everything you want to read, when it changes,
and you can look at it off-line. You could also think of it as
pre-loading the cache, because if you just normally browse to some
subscribed URL, it will use the local copy (which should be up-to-date
already).
With IE4, this can be done with _any_ web document. It doesn't have to
be some special push server, because it's really just automated-pull.
>you dial in and then suddenly take up all this time loading stuff when
>really, you'd rather be looking at something else???? -- Just wondering.
It can do this too. But it defaults to only updating when you're not
using the computer. I'm not sure if IE has to be running for this to
happen or not, because I never leave Win95 running when I'm not using
it. I've had it mysteriously crash over night too often.
(Followups set to ciw.browsers.misc)
--
Bill Bereza ber...@pobox.com http://www.pobox.com/~bereza/
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
Dave Paulsen
In article <3490b...@news.cyberus.ca>, dmcg...@moodindigo.com says...
>
>Dave Paulsen wrote in message <66n2sn$mvr$1...@texas.nwlink.com>...
>>In article <66jueq$a...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca says...
>>>
>>>Web "page" is, well, tired. Furthermore, attempts to achieve it work
>>>
>context is
>>still important. Unless you're dealing with "sound bite" quantities, having
>
>bite-sized (sorry), you would have a point. Half the problem that people
>have with the Web paradigm is that they're not viewing the Web at all,
>they're drifting from page to page.
Well, depending on how you look at it, drifting from page to page is how one
_does_ view the web. In many instances though, drifting is the wrong descriptor
to use. That certain commercial sites would lead one to believe that hypertext
is still a myth, I think the community sites are the best examples of sites
that understand the concept behind the web so far.
>Try if you can for a moment to imagine the Web outside of the context of
>print media. The possible applications start to multiply when we don't
>assume that the entire legacy of print publishing *must* be carried onto the
>web.
>
Oh, I don't think the entire legacy of print is a necessary part. The ability
to follow tangents or dig deeper, and the live sex shows, are something that
print media just doesn't do justice to.
Remember though, that we are still human, and visual and textual information
assimilation haven't changed a whit. Print media _does_ have a bit of
experience in conveying information.
>having text presented to them in that format. What I do mean to say is that
>top-left to bottom-right should not therefore be assumed to be the ideal
>format for the presentation of linked content.
Yes, but don't mistake the presentation with the linkage. What is the content
at the end of that link? How you get there can be as non-linear and chaotic as
you want it to be, but when you do get there, there better be a <HEAD> and
<TITLE>.
Arjun Ray
In <348EAFAF...@dircon.co.uk>, Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk>
writes:
| I had hoped that Arjun would respect the fact that I was taking his
| observations seriously enough to attempt to explain the value of non-verbal
| communication, which he declared to be beyond his capability to appreciate.
I'm allergic to ineffable allegedly profound floating abstractions.
| Arjun Ray wrote:
| > Or someone's willingness to unravel "maddening webs of words".
|
| A pathetic side-swipe.
OK. Try this: all gas, no ballast. Or this: all fat, no beef. HTH.
| It is apparent that your mind is fixed; you are not interested in learning
| from a debate;
Debate? What debate? You ducked every issue raised. All I've learnt
from hot air is that there's plenty more if I wait for it. No thanks.
| and your interest in participating in this newsgroup is to "win" arguments,
| and justify your worldview *to yourself*.
Fascinating. Are you saying I've "won" an argument? Gee, thanks.
| > [From <URL:news:3433DD46...@dircon.co.uk>, posted 2-Oct-97]
| > : Whilst Netscape and IE are invaluable trailblazers for the development
| > : of html, [etc. etc.]
|
| Oh good. Let's quote out of context. If the reader wishes to make a judgement,
| I suggest that she read the original post.
Precisely. That's why I *gave* the context: a URL and a date. It's a
pity that Dejanews doesn't allow (long-lived) direct URLs to articles.
Besides a clearly parenthetical comment on quoted material preceding
it to set the stage, the quoted clause starts the article cited, and
expresses an independent thought (both by construction and by intent:
you do know how to use "whilst", don't you?) It happened to be a
remarkably succinct admission of cluelessness, for which I'll take
this opportunity to thank you.
| I stand by the principles of the value of NS/IE that I wrote there; Nobody
| to my knowledge has refuted them.
You have the option to remain invincibly ignorant. Here's a short list
posted by Abigail recently:
: Stylesheets: proposed before Netscape hit the market. Implemented in
: browsers in early 1995. Didn't appear in Netscape earlier
: than their 4.0 version - probably only triggered by MSIE
: implementing style sheets.
: Java: Was there before Netscape was.
: Tables: Dates back to at least 1993.
: Frames: If only Netscape had followed the suggestions "committees"
: made, people wouldn't have hated them.
: Objects: First proposed in 1995, as the successor of FIG, which dates
: from at least 1993.
I find your propensity to dodge issues of fact not at all surprising:
that's how the contents of your "knowledge" remain unrefuted. (Fair
warning: there's a relatively obvious omission in Abigail's list, but
this was probably oversight on her part. See my posts to the thread
"Real Dynamic HTML standards" for some factual evidence that you
should be prepared to address.)
| > I'm sure he had no idea how many bogosity alarms he tripped with this
| > Osmotically Correct encomium.
|
| Put a bag on it, Arjun. Just because I'm silent, it doesn't mean I'm not
| reading the group. If you are you suggesting that my argument is bogus,
Try presenting an argument first. Mindless shibboleth, unsubstantiated
opinion and nebulous blather don't count, sorry.
| Or even do us a favour and tell us your precise position on the use of design,
There you go, yet again. "Use of design"? The phrase is vacuous
without contextual referents. Design of what? Addressing what set of
facts and constraints? To what end? With what means at hand?
OK. I have no precise position on the use of design, that completely
general, utterly disconnected, noumenally immaculate, Platonic ideal
suspended in the limbo of some ineffably profound understanding. In
fact, I have no position at all. Pretentiousness I happily leave to
you.
| "tendentious verbiage"???
I call 'em as I see 'em. In this case I borrowed a friend's phrase.
| Dogbert????
Yup, Dilbert's management consultant from hell. He claims to have
taken over the Internet:-)
| Arjun, you are more of a boor than I thought possible.
Perhaps Mark V. Shaney would be more to your liking?
| HTML is a human language.
Oh, brother. Free clue: HTML is a data format for computer programs.
Beware the deep end.
:ar
Eric Bohlman
Dan McGarry <tal...@bnr.ca> wrote:
: Example: I am reading a review of a West End theatre production of
: _MacB*th_. The author of the article refers to the inclusion of a scene
Cheater. You're supposed to call it "the Scottish play."
: which scholars have largely agreed was not written by W.S. himself.
: Rather than rely on the author to provide us with links (she may or
: may not be aware of individual resources), how to spawn a search
: which would return abstracts from a variety of related materials
: in a compact form(*)?
[snip further musings]
You've brought up the (rather severe) limitations of keyword searching,
and what Jorn Barger has called the narrow peephole. A few months ago I
was reading the results of a Web usability study (unfortunately, I've
forgotten the reference) which found something that few people
anticipated: one of the most important things to users was that they had
a good idea in advance of what was on the other end of a link. I'm
waiting for search engines to start providing various synopses of indexed
sites, such as outlines or lists of linked-to sites.
All this points to the importance of structural, as opposed to purely
presentational, markup. Increasingly, the user agents that read HTML (or
XML, or whatever) markup aren't going to be browsers; they're going to be
"information extraction" tools. HTML as it stands, if used correctly,
can give such a tool a good idea of how the various components of a
document relate to each other. I think what you're trying to get at is
that in the future, that's not going to be enough; there also has to be
some way for a Web document to tell such tools how it relates to other
Web documents, many of which are not even part of the same "site" and
aren't under the control of the author.
Right now, the only way that the author of a document on, say, the Scottish
Play can place it into a larger context is to include links to other
specific, known-in-advance, documents on the same or related subjects.
If next month someone publishes a new paper on the subject, the document
can't refer people to it unless the author specifically updates it to
include such a link. Ideally, you'd want to be able to use a
"conceptual" link rather than a specific-document link so that someone
who reads the document would be able to branch off to *any* other
document on the subject. This would require a couple things:
1) That Web documents expose the concepts they address in a standardized
fashion. We already know that the mere presence of words in the document
body or in a <META> abstract isn't enough to do this: there will be too
many false hits.
2) The availability of indexing services that can extract these exposed
concept references and build databases that can store not only the
identities of documents addressing these concepts, but their relationships.
3) A standard means of representing concepts. Something like the Dewey
or Library of Congress cataloging systems for books is a start, but
they're still too limited.
4) A language for representing the relationships between concepts and
between particular ways of addressing those concepts. We need to be able
to say "A is commentary on B," "C represents an alternative viewpoint to
A" etc. in an unambiguous fashion.
It's been quite a while since I've followed information-retrieval theory,
and all the work I remember was all based on using the presence of terms
to organize documents for retrieval. But language isn't words as words;
it's arrangements of words to convey meaning.
What I've written here seems to me at least like a random collection of
thoughts, because I realize that I'm not very clear on how to accomplish
all this.
Chris Gray
>
> At some point, the way we describe and, more importantly, deploy
> HTML documents could change fundamentally. The assumption of sole
> ownership or authorship might not be made so easily if only the
> salient passages of one's paper were transmitted, to be
> incorporated into a larger composite document at some distant
> client's request.
>
Welcome to Xanadu. :)
--
Chris Gray
Dan McGarry
In article <66o157$rh1$1...@texas.nwlink.com>, dav...@reststopDOT.net (Dave Paulsen) writes:
[snip!]
|> Well, depending on how you look at it, drifting from page to page is how one
|> _does_ view the web. In many instances though, drifting is the wrong descriptor
|> to use. That certain commercial sites would lead one to believe that hypertext
|> is still a myth, I think the community sites are the best examples of sites
|> that understand the concept behind the web so far.
I wasn't attempting to disparage the Web itself with that statement. Of
course the Web allows free navigation. What I was trying to say was that
the documents themselves represented a remarkable unimaginative use of
HTML and content.
|> >Try if you can for a moment to imagine the Web outside of the context of
|> >print media. The possible applications start to multiply when we don't
|> >assume that the entire legacy of print publishing *must* be carried onto the
|> >web.
|> >
|> Oh, I don't think the entire legacy of print is a necessary part. The ability
|> to follow tangents or dig deeper, and the live sex shows, are something that
|> print media just doesn't do justice to.
Think what you like about the sex shows. Your observation on tangential
navigation can lead in some quite fascinating directions... eventually
<grin>.
|> Remember though, that we are still human, and visual and textual information
|> assimilation haven't changed a whit. Print media _does_ have a bit of
|> experience in conveying information.
I don't agree at all that our ability to assimilate information hasn't
changed. Our oral retention is not nearly what it was in pre-literate
times. Our ability to interpret actual data from abstract imagery is miles
from where it used to be. Even print publication itself has changed many
times since its popular inception.
|> >having text presented to them in that format. What I do mean to say is that
|> >top-left to bottom-right should not therefore be assumed to be the ideal
|> >format for the presentation of linked content.
|>
|> Yes, but don't mistake the presentation with the linkage. What is the content
|> at the end of that link? How you get there can be as non-linear and chaotic as
|> you want it to be, but when you do get there, there better be a <HEAD> and
|> <TITLE>.
I don't see the necessity for those elements. Care to explain?
--
Dan McGarry
Dan McGarry
In article <ebohlmanE...@netcom.com>, Eric Bohlman <eboh...@netcom.com> writes:
|> You've brought up the (rather severe) limitations of keyword searching,
|> and what Jorn Barger has called the narrow peephole. A few months ago I
|> was reading the results of a Web usability study (unfortunately, I've
|> forgotten the reference) which found something that few people
|> anticipated: one of the most important things to users was that they had
|> a good idea in advance of what was on the other end of a link. I'm
|> waiting for search engines to start providing various synopses of indexed
|> sites, such as outlines or lists of linked-to sites.
Great. Now my 500 page opus on the planet Earth will be reduced by some
tired content editor to "Mostly harmless." (Sounds weirdly familiar...)
Actually, I was kind of hoping that the document might be able
to provide that synopsis itself, by virtue of careful extraction and
collation (on the client side) of certain elements.
|> All this points to the importance of structural, as opposed to purely
|> presentational, markup. Increasingly, the user agents that read HTML (or
|> XML, or whatever) markup aren't going to be browsers; they're going to be
|> "information extraction" tools. HTML as it stands, if used correctly,
|> can give such a tool a good idea of how the various components of a
|> document relate to each other. I think what you're trying to get at is
|> that in the future, that's not going to be enough; there also has to be
|> some way for a Web document to tell such tools how it relates to other
|> Web documents, many of which are not even part of the same "site" and
|> aren't under the control of the author.
I'm actually hoping for something only slightly less random than
synchronicity.
I heard a radio program last night which featured
Tim BL and the inventors of WAIS, Java, Navigator and a few other
Web baubles. One of the items mentioned was the Alexa project, which
is an attempt to store literally every byte on the Web, then to
organize it somehow, and to make this multi-terabyte storehouse
searchable.
My mother phoned me right toward the end, so I might get the
attribution wrong, but it was either the head of the Alexa
project or the co-creator of Yahoo! (I'm embarrassed to admit
I don't know which) who stated that one of the approaches to
defining valid content through the maze of WWW materials would
be to mark "trails", that is, to weight more frequently visited
documents more heavily in search results. The implication being
taken in this case is that something frequently accessed is more
reliable in nature than something rarely if ever accessed.
Well, I have to admit I felt a cold shudder when I heard that.
Surely there are more reliable methods than this.... Aside from
being something of a self-fulfilling prophecy (document or site
gains weight and credibility by mere virtue of herd instinct,
or because of some free give-away), the logic behind that approach
of patently fallacious. In today's Internet, sex would be the single
most important issue, trailed by the acquisition of illegal software.
(Huh. The truth of that saddens me....)
I had something different in mind, something along the lines of
an HTML structure which:
- extends above and below the individual document (i.e. file) level,
- could contain meta data on a number of levels in its
hierarchical structure (or preferably, from which meta
data could be inferred).
Depending on the nature and breadth of such a hierarchy (reaching
up to TLDs?), it would at least be possible to search for, say,
fiction based on shakespeare without relying much on authorial or
editorial intervention in our search. It should then be ready to
provide me with a copy of _500 Acres_, or to let me view Kurosawa's
"Ran" -- either one with system-level indifference. Just as easily,
it would be possible to limit the scope of our search to scholarly
publications, perhaps even New England quarterlies (though there
is a point at which such detail becomes nothing more than clutter).
|> Right now, the only way that the author of a document on, say, the Scottish
|> Play can place it into a larger context is to include links to other
|> specific, known-in-advance, documents on the same or related subjects.
|> If next month someone publishes a new paper on the subject, the document
|> can't refer people to it unless the author specifically updates it to
|> include such a link. Ideally, you'd want to be able to use a
|> "conceptual" link rather than a specific-document link so that someone
|> who reads the document would be able to branch off to *any* other
|> document on the subject. This would require a couple things:
Something like a taxonomy for content, you mean? I may or may not
know the species, but because I know the genus I can actually get
more comprehensive results? Interesting, but I'm not convinced such
beast could survive in the wild. All WWW content would have to find
a predefined cubby-hole for itself before it could be reasonably
said to exist. And again, there's no faculty for future-
compatibility....
--
Dan McGarry
Alan J. Flavell
On 11 Dec 1997, Dan McGarry wrote:
> I heard a radio program last night which featured
> Tim BL and the inventors of WAIS, Java, Navigator and a few other
> Web baubles
You aren't allowed to listen to radio! It doesn't have a GUI!!
In the brave new world of Big Brother BS, you're compelled to choose
between TV and TV, but you better not have the temerity to choose PBS.
Your posting was spot-on, so it's be sure to get howled down.
Cathy Wylie
Listening to Tim Berners-Lee last night on the radio, I was
reminded that this is expressly what the WWW was created to
foster. He described the environment as CERN as mutable and
dynamic, and his attempts to foster the collaborative nature
of work at that facility eventually culminated in his invention
(if you will) of the WWW.
Now you just leave the rest of that pie in the sky in the
window until it cools down.... <grin>
--
Dan McGarry
Dan McGarry
In article <Pine.A41.3.95a.971211181554.75030J-100000@sp062>, "Alan J. Flavell" <fla...@mail.cern.ch> writes:
|> On 11 Dec 1997, Dan McGarry wrote:
|>
|> > I heard a radio program last night which featured
|> > Tim BL and the inventors of WAIS, Java, Navigator and a few other
|> > Web baubles
|>
|> You aren't allowed to listen to radio! It doesn't have a GUI!!
We-ell, it *is* offered in Real Audio format to those of you not
privileged enough to live in Canada and listen to the CBC....
<URL:http://www.radio.cbc.ca/programs/ideas/>
(Aside: Does Lynx have a real-audio plug-in? How about your
Psion? <evil grin>)
|> In the brave new world of Big Brother BS, you're compelled to choose
|> between TV and TV, but you better not have the temerity to choose PBS.
In our little cultural backwater, we actually have a gov't-subsidized
national info network devoted to providing quality material that reflects
Canada to Canadians. To heap irony on irony, it actually succeeds from
time to time.
|> Your posting was spot-on, so it's be sure to get howled down.
[ducking and running...]
8^)
--
Dan McGarry
Jukka Korpela
On Thu, 11 Dec 1997 07:16:51 GMT, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) wrote:
>| > [From <URL:news:3433DD46...@dircon.co.uk>, posted 2-Oct-97]
- -
>It's a
>pity that Dejanews doesn't allow (long-lived) direct URLs to articles.
Indeed. And news: URLs aren't very useful in practice either (as
explained in http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/HTML3.2/news.html ).
Does someone know whether there is any reasonably reliable way to
refer to articles via DejaNews? If I view an article using DejaNews
and take the URL which my browser shows me, then paste the URL into a
a link in my HTML file, it seems to work for some time at least. But I
hate to depend on such query URLs for which I can find no
documentation. (I hope I'll get some response to my mail to DejaNews
support on this, but I'm afraid they get so much fan mail that it
might take some time from them to respond.) See an example near the
end of my http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/flags.html
If we could use such a mechanism it would be a very nice way to cite
news articles, since DejaNews also gives the context (thread) pretty
nicely.
Well, one problem with (any method of) linking to news articles is
that it is difficult to write a meaningful TITLE attribute. The idea
of using the subject header suggests itself, but as we know (see the
subject header of this message), they are very often misleading. And
even in principle, the subject header, even when relevant, describes a
_thread_, not an individual article. Perhaps one could use the news:
URL as a comment-like TITLE attribute? (As you can see, I'm obsessed
with the idea of scattering TITLE attributes around. :-)
--
Yucca, http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/
Chip Ciammaichella
Perhaps car-stereos are banned in BSville?
I can think of no better way to enjoy a baseball game (short of being
there) than to tune it in on the radio, and I really enjoy some of the
old radio shows like Jack Benny and George & Gracie. Some things are
better experienced when you must depend on your imagination to fill in
the blanks. :-)
--
Chip
Alan J. Flavell wrote in message ...
>On 11 Dec 1997, Dan McGarry wrote:
>
>> I heard a radio program last night which featured
>> Tim BL and the inventors of WAIS, Java, Navigator and a few other
>> Web baubles
>
>You aren't allowed to listen to radio! It doesn't have a GUI!!
>
>In the brave new world of Big Brother BS, you're compelled to choose
>between TV and TV, but you better not have the temerity to choose PBS.
>
Susan Lesch
Re: article <34903c5d...@news.cs.hut.fi>,
from Jukka....@hut.fi (Jukka Korpela):
[snip]
> Does someone know whether there is any reasonably reliable way to
> refer to articles via DejaNews?
Well, is there a better way than this? I don't recall any answers
in the Deja News vs. HTML thread. These links have survived about
a month with no signs of going bad.
<http://www.macvirus.com/test/font/fontsize.html>
It is a two-step process to read: first the reader has to get the
search result from dejanews.com, and then open the article there.
Not elegant like your URL by article, but the anchors are filter
constructs, that might last, in case the target data moves.
<URL:http://search.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=%28%7Ea+
Jukka....@hut.fi%26font%26size%26Stripling%26%7Edc+
1997%2F11%2F05%29>
> And news: URLs aren't very useful in practice either (as
> explained in http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/HTML3.2/news.html ).
Alfred S. Gilman may have a start on a solution in this
Internet-Draft of 31 Aug 1997. You'll understand this better
than I do. It is designed to replace the news: URL parts of RFCs
1738 and 1808.
<ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-gilman-news-url-00.txt>
--
Susan Lesch
Dave Paulsen
In article <66muja$i...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca says...
...
>Can HTML be extended beyond its current role as a conveyor of content
>to that of a conveyor of context? Some search engines already weight
>content based on the element in which a string is found (<H1>The
>Future of HTML</h1> gaining greater weight than <p> ... the future
>of HTML ... </p>). Can this be extended to the point where a semi-
>intelligent user agent could initiate a content search with a
>predefined scope using a selected element in one document as its
>jumping off point?
That's pretty much how some intelligent agents work today. Context matching in
deep text searches is what I tend to call an inference engine. Check out the
products built around the Texis db from Thunderstone Software.
>Example: I am reading a review of a West End theatre production of
>_MacB*th_. The author of the article refers to the inclusion of a scene
>which scholars have largely agreed was not written by W.S. himself.
>Rather than rely on the author to provide us with links (she may or
>may not be aware of individual resources), how to spawn a search
>which would return abstracts from a variety of related materials
>in a compact form(*)?
>
To my mind though, the author is the proper layer for this, its up to the
reader to follow links from the other resources as their interests dictate. I'm
not saying that automated capabilities of this type are not important and
useful, what I am saying is that the HTML level, or markup in general, is not
the place to put all the inputs into the search algorithms. Indexing and
searching tools need to know how to handle HTML, but for the capability that
you are asking for, they need a lot more.
>And rather than rely on string occurrences in external documents
>(i.e. history of Hecate in Roman mythology -- largely useless, but
>containing the string "Hecate"), how to access reliable resources
>dealing with authorship issues in Shakespeare's plays?
Weighting algorithms to handle this definitely fall into the fuzzy logic
domain. and they all involve human input initially, and human involvement in
ongoing tuning. The client has to decide for themselves what level of
'reliable' they are comfortable with, or who their greater authorities are.
>I'm aware that this might be a poor example, as a few moments of thought
>followed by a quick visit to Alta Vista would suffice to address much
>of what I'm saying. I would rather use this conjecture as the starting
This turns out to be the case more often than not, actually. Plus, when you
know all the factors that have to be taken into account for an agent to reach
this same decision, would you really trust the agents binary decision? This is
why I say to just leave it to the person searching, because it seems if they're
not smart enought to figure out how to find it, they aren't going to know what
to do with it when it arrives anyway :-)
[snip]
>Can an implementation of the document object model be envisioned that would
>allow us to gather components of other documents into a composite, rather
>transitory document constructed for this purpose alone?
Yes, it's called HTTP :-)
Jude Crouch
In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Chip Ciammaichella <ch...@raton.com> wrote:
> I can think of no better way to enjoy a baseball game (short of being
> there) than to tune it in on the radio, and I really enjoy some of the
> old radio shows like Jack Benny and George & Gracie. Some things are
> better experienced when you must depend on your imagination to fill in
> the blanks. :-)
I'm reminded of a radio commercial played in Chicago about 20 years
ago. Using great narration and sound effects, they build an ice
cream sundae eight stories high. You could hear the cranes moving
the ice cream and the splashing of the deep rich chocolate syrup.
Finally, with a thump, the cherry was installed at the top.
Then the message: Would this be possible using television advertising?
Well, today you could use a variety of graphical techniques to
accomplish this on television, but it would never taste as good
as the the mountain of ice cream that was created IN MY MIND by
that advertisement. The picture in my mind was far superior to
the picture build by visual means. My mouth still waters when
I think of that advertisement for a company that made radio ads.
It was wildly successful and won several awards from their peers
in the marketing industry.
Arjun Ray
In <66mq6q$d...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
|In article <348e06f7....@news.nyct.net>, ar...@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes:
||> In <66jueq$a...@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, tal...@bnr.ca (Dan McGarry) writes:
||>| Furthermore, attempts to achieve [linear presentation] work against
||>| most of what we're talking about here. Far better to break things down;
||>| combine several elements into a single "page" if you must, but make them
||>| capable of standing alone, at least.
||>
||> Even better if the links between them were processed intelligently,
||> no?
|
| Now that's downright evil: opening that can of worms like that with one
| little sentence just dripping with false innocence... <grin>
Well, the typical Designer D00d is too busy smorgasbording stuff
together into fussy clutters to realize that "web design" (OK, OK, I'm
guilty of using a buzzphrase) is mainly a matter of linking content.
Even though the linking facilities of HTML are limited (i.e default
semantics of transclusion via SRC and traversal via HREF), they still
offer much more than normally gets exploited. The essential history of
the currently "dominant" Mosaic paradigm is Atrophy from Disuse: a
synergistic convergence of the poorest use of link information by
software with the poorest grasp by wetware. Download Netploder NOW!!1!
| [I] found myself wondering what would happen if we didn't bother
| cramming a <META> element full of arbitrary key words and force-feeding
| them to search engines.
The problem is that cramming METAs is essentially free: there is no
necessary relation between the contents of the META and the rest. Did
I say necessary? Let's try ... functional ... structural. Hmm. It may
help to ask: how does META differ from classified ads?
| What if we could simply highlight pertinent passages inline (a thesis,
| a conclusion, a critical quote) by embracing them with HTML tags.
Only up to a point, I think. The structural categories in HTML are
rather generic (apart from some relatively specific element types
clearly attributable to its origins.) This is by design, of course:
the idea was to abstract as much as could be common to many different
information domains. The vast majority of specific domains *even when
mainly textual* are not served particularly well by HTML as a "native"
encoding format. Recurring barrages of tag-featurism notwithstanding,
there really is no answer for the Babel Effect within HTML. Pardon me
while I repeat the litany: every technology has limitations. The
relevant limitation here is that the generic categories may not be
"meaningful enough", and any approach involving more element types
will neither scale nor arbitrate equitably.
The HTML 3.0 draft seemed to offer a way out with the CLASS attribute:
in theory, you could encode your domain-specific extra information
through the attribute value. <P CLASS="thesis"> and so on. Borrowing
OO terminology, this canonical use of CLASS would enable a form of
subclassing ("This is a 'thesis' kind of P.") But even if CLASS hadn't
been formally hijacked for stylesheets, using it for subclassing is a
bad idea anyway: the clumsiness of the construction "a 'thesis' kind
of P" reveals the problem(s). You're the one who needs to identify the
thesis: the *thesis* is important to you; that it's also a HTML P is
merely an artifact of your encoding problem. Moreoever, the thesis may
be part of a greater aggregate or context: neither can you identify
the domain or schema within which the thesis has relevance, nor can
you relate it to other such domain specific entities in the same HTML
document (each of them marked up in isolation.)
A partial solution would be to use the attribute name as a domain
identifier. <P MCGARRY="thesis">. But this is the same Babel Effect
problem revisited. What we're really dealing with is a *relation
between* two domains, a MCGARRY of THESIS, CONCLUSION, CRITQUOTE, etc.
and a HTML of P, DIV, EM, etc. Moreover, the MCGARRY domain has
relatively specific categories, so in OO terms it should be the
MCGARRY domain of elements that should be subclassing from HTML
elements, where it becomes necessary to indicate the relationship --
which is to say that the attribute mechanism should be used to
identify the superclass. <THESIS HTML="P">. Use element types native
to the information domain to encode the information, and use
attributes to identify a superclass that can be *extracted* as needed.
If a THESIS will always be a HTML P, you can tuck this information
away in the MCGARRY DTD and not clutter the document instance:
<!ATTLIST thesis
html NAME #FIXED "P" >
(Without the #FIXED keyword, "P" would be a default that could be
overridden by an explicit attribute specification where needed.)
Now reconsider the META-cramming problem. Its genesis was in the
circumstance that HTML element types aren't *specific* enough in their
information content. Well, here, a document composed according to the
MCGARRY DTD uses exactly those specific types as its (often-used)
elements. What about the HTML version? That's just a matter of
grokking a single attribute (by name, "HTML"!): either extract it from
DTD or instance and ignore the element name, or use a preprocessor to
prepare a HTML version for the SGML-challenged tag-slurpers out
there;-)
What I've described so far is the essential idea behind "Architectural
Forms". The key is in using attributes for link information (in this
case, to HTML categories.) There's plenty more where AFs came from...
| Multimedia content would be much more difficult to qualify (hence the
| continuing importance of of the T in HTML), but images, for example,
| might be made to submit to pattern recognition software trained to
| search for similar colour schemes, shapes, text in graphical form....
That's a tough problem indeed. But it helps to distinguish inferential
search (basically under the rubric of AI) from directed search (which
can take programmatic advantage of appropriate meta-information added
to "final content".) There's also the problem of read-only sources:
CDs, tapes, archives that need to remain unmodified for legal reasons,
etc. We help the IAs the more we can add markup, but in some cases the
markup will have to be physically distinct from its content (i.e.
point to it rather than contain it.) Yet again, we're talking about
linking as the fundamental technology that needs to be deployed.
If you're up to wading through some relentless geekery, see
<URL:http://www.hytime.org/>
| I suppose the more pressing issue is how one generates the critical
| mass required to provide proof of concept compelling (and yes, easy)
| enough to convince the dancing GIF banner crowd that there's a better
| way?
Take the longer view. You're never going to stop their enthusiastic
stampedes over the trailing edge.
:ar
Steve Davis
Arjun Ray wrote:
>
> ...a synergistic convergence of the poorest use of link information by
> software with the poorest grasp by wetware. Download Netploder NOW!!1!
Well, we've discovered our differences on that score, haven't we?
> The problem is that cramming METAs is essentially free: there is no
> necessary relation between the contents of the META and the rest. Did
> I say necessary? Let's try ... functional ... structural. Hmm. It may
> help to ask: how does META differ from classified ads?
Indeed, but so long as META remains functionally disconnected from the
content, and as long as there is no viable alternative to the provision of
increasingly necessary document summaries, I don't see how you can expect
things to be different. There are two parts to solving a problem, the
deconstruction of the problem into its fundamental elements, and the
construction of the solution. You have consistently shown yourself to be
highly perceptive in analysis, but a failure at the second, harder phase that
requires creative thought. It's no good standing on the shoulders of giants if
all you do is to contemplate their hair.
Content alert:
Suppose you make META (for name == description, keyword) an *inline* element;
or you could allow META to TARGET the relevant content in BODY. Both would
seem to offer much of the solution to a problem that you term irresolvable,
and thus fail to note Dan's perception in the following as a result (though he
seems to forsee a more complex solution than I have just proposed):
[Dan McGarry]
> | What if we could simply highlight pertinent passages inline (a thesis,
> | a conclusion, a critical quote) by embracing them with HTML tags.
[Arjun]
> Only up to a point, I think. The structural categories in HTML are
> rather generic (apart from some relatively specific element types
> clearly attributable to its origins.) This is by design, of course:
> the idea was to abstract as much as could be common to many different
> information domains. The vast majority of specific domains *even when
> mainly textual* are not served particularly well by HTML as a "native"
> encoding format. Recurring barrages of tag-featurism notwithstanding,
> there really is no answer for the Babel Effect within HTML.
There is *no* answer?? Yeah, right. Until someone with greater vision than you
finds it. People thought for a large part of this century that there was no
structure to the proton.
> Pardon me
> while I repeat the litany: every technology has limitations.
And litany it is. Many accept a dogma of limitation. Others push these
accepted 'limitations' to test whether it is dogma or is representative of
some aspect of truth.
> The
> relevant limitation here is that the generic categories may not be
> "meaningful enough", and any approach involving more element types
> will neither scale nor arbitrate equitably.
And just how is this assertion subject to proof? Hint: The scientific method
is such that nothing is ever proven. It is only possible to disprove an
assertion. Scientific knowledge is built (contrary to popular belief) only on
accumulated evidence, not on absolute truths. It was Einstein who said that a
single ugly fact can ruin even the most beautiful theory.
> The HTML 3.0 draft seemed to offer a way out with the CLASS attribute:
There followed another fine analysis from Arjun... intellectually interesting,
but again, failing to offer any hope of a solution. Then we got to this:
[Dan]
> | Multimedia content would be much more difficult to qualify (hence the
> | continuing importance of of the T in HTML), but images, for example,
> | might be made to submit to pattern recognition software trained to
> | search for similar colour schemes, shapes, text in graphical form....
[Arjun]
> That's a tough problem indeed. But it helps to distinguish inferential
> search (basically under the rubric of AI) from directed search (which
> can take programmatic advantage of appropriate meta-information added
> to "final content".)
Oh boy, this anti-constructional philosophy runs deep. I don't see that
structures of colour combinations and shapes are necessarily inferential any
more than in what you choose to call the 'final content'. E.g. "decimate" has
two well-defined but different meanings dependent on reader inference. Your
belief in the ultimate precision of language is charming but ill-founded.
[*Now* who's appealing to Platonic forms? Eh?] You seriously under-rate the
importance and misconstrue the value of the genetic algorithms and/or
processing by neural networks that Dan was (knowingly or not) referring to.
This distinction between directed search and inferential search is a maguffin;
just as much an SMA as any heard previously in this newsgroup.
I suggest you read some of the recent material on emergent behaviour coming
out of the Santa Fe Institute, courtesy (primarily) of Stu Kauffman. It'll
give you a clue about the direction of science, and the kind of technological
outcomes that will dominate the next century. I'd guess you believe that the
*physical* behaviour of the internet is predictable; after all it's just one
predictable system connected to another. Not so, chum. The total dominance of
predicatable linear behaviours went out the window a good while ago, and was
further eroded with the explosive development of non-linear mathematics. Even
the simplest of electrical circuits can exhibit non-linear behaviour under a
variety of circumstances (ref: the work of Brosl Hasslacher at LANL). I
suggest you find out *exactly* how a transistor works. I don't mean the high
school version, I mean down to the fundamental physical principles of QED. If
that doesn't change your world, I don't know what will. On past form, I fully
expect that you'll stop asking questions once you get as far as the
Schroedinger Equation, in which case, chum, you are beyond hope.
I may find your contributions interesting, Arjun. But I rarely find them
useful. The 'osmotic guff' that I spout, and you are so quick to dismiss, is
founded on a mature and valid worldview; if you give yourself the time and
generate within yourself the inclination to think it through, perhaps you may
understand that one day. Importantly, I don't claim unique validity based on a
singular worldview, unlike yourself.
Steve Davis
Arjun Ray
Poor Steve. He doesn't like being told about his ignorance. I've hurt
his feelings, and he's annoyed. He wants to pick a fight. -sigh-.
In <34910A32...@dircon.co.uk>,
Steve Davis <ste...@dircon.co.uk> burbles:
| Arjun Ray wrote:
| [...] so long as META remains functionally disconnected from the
| content, and as long as there is no viable alternative to the
| provision of increasingly necessary document summaries, I don't see
| how you can expect things to be different.
I agree entirely. In fact, that's (the summary of) the status quo from
which this particular discussion started. You could have a serious R&C
problem needing immediate attention, but more likely you simply missed
it in your rush to get your licks in.
[ potshot #1 deleted ]
| Content alert:
Marvelous. We weren't expecting any. Thank you for the warning.
| Suppose you make META (for name == description, keyword) an *inline*
| element;
Like SPOT or SPAN? Presumably there's something exceptionally creative
about META as the generic identifier. Oops, I shouldn't use technical
terms, sorry. Presumably there's something exceptionally creative
about META as the name of the element.
| or you could allow META to TARGET the relevant content in BODY.
Much better, as you can take advantage of existing markup to identify
the particular content you want to point to. The ID/IDREF mechanism
became part of an International Standard 11 years ago. Did you have
something else in mind?
| Both would seem to offer much of the solution
Would it hurt your feelings to be told that both your suggestions have
been made before, and have been thoroughly discussed and thought
through quite some time back (no, not months, but years ago)? You can
pat yourself on the back for the magnificent feat of duplicating a
creative thought. You might have done better to research the subject.
Start with the archive of the (now defunct) IETF's HTML Working Group
<URL:http://www.acl.lanl.gov/HTML_WG/>
The old www-talk list has plenty of stuff too. (Check www.w3.org for a
URL: the archives have moved recently, so URLs could be "unstable" at
this point.)
| to a problem that you term irresolvable,
I suggest you review what I wrote. Slowly, this time.
| and thus fail to note Dan's perception in the following as a result
| (though he seems to forsee a more complex solution than I have just
| proposed):
No, nothing particularly complex. You could profitably review
Abigail's recent rant on why she wants lots and lots of new tags.
| [Dan McGarry]
| > | What if we could simply highlight pertinent passages inline (a thesis,
| > | a conclusion, a critical quote) by embracing them with HTML tags.
Exercise your prodigious powers of creative thought and see if you can
find a way to insert the word "new" in that sentence. It'll help your
C, assuming the R.
| > Recurring barrages of tag-featurism notwithstanding,
| > there really is no answer for the Babel Effect within HTML.
|
| There is *no* answer?? Yeah, right.
It looks as though your R isn't helping you, since your C abandons you
when you need it the most. Free clue: the Babel Effect is what happens
when you declare open season for new tags. Did you er, think, it was
something to do with META-cramming?
[ potshot #2 deleted ]
| > Pardon me while I repeat the litany: every technology has limitations.
|
| And litany it is. Many accept a dogma of limitation.
Does the word "constraint" mean anything to you? Did you perchance
flunk out of Economics 101 or Optimization Theory 101? Did you miss
the "why is a cow a cow?" lesson in high-school physics? Rest assured
that your talent for missing the point is showing, quite clearly.
| > The relevant limitation here is that the generic categories may not
| > be "meaningful enough", and any approach involving more element types
| > will neither scale nor arbitrate equitably.
|
| And just how is this assertion subject to proof?
It's a prediction, not an assertion.
| Hint: The scientific method is such that nothing is ever proven.
Hint: You've missed the point again.
[ potshot #3 deleted ]
| [Dan]
| > | Multimedia content would be much more difficult to qualify (hence the
| > | continuing importance of of the T in HTML), but images, for example,
| > | might be made to submit to pattern recognition software trained to
| > | search for similar colour schemes, shapes, text in graphical form....
| [Arjun]
| > That's a tough problem indeed. But it helps to distinguish inferential
| > search (basically under the rubric of AI) from directed search (which
| > can take programmatic advantage of appropriate meta-information added
| > to "final content".)
|
| Oh boy, this anti-constructional philosophy runs deep.
And now, you're simply babbling. You need to curb the urge to grace us
with commentary -- until you acquire a handle on staying relevant, not
to mention coherent.
| I don't see that structures of colour combinations and shapes are
| necessarily inferential any more than in what you choose to call the
| 'final content'. E.g. "decimate" has two well-defined but different
| meanings dependent on reader inference. Your belief in the ultimate
| precision of language is charming but ill-founded. [*Now* who's
| appealing to Platonic forms? Eh?] You seriously under-rate the
| importance and misconstrue the value of the genetic algorithms and/or
| processing by neural networks that Dan was (knowingly or not) referring to.
I'm sorry, but you are a blithering idiot. Did you imagine I was
dismissing AI techniques? Do you know what structural markup is?
| I suggest you [ portentous drivel and sophomoric oneupmanship deleted ]
Mother Of All Usenet Clues: Don't drop names. That's automatically
underwhelming. Try proper bibliographic citations or URLs. It's known
as being relevant.
[ potshot #4 deleted ]
| The 'osmotic guff' that I spout, and you are so quick to dismiss, is
| founded on a mature and valid worldview;
Yes, you're very good at patting yourself on the back.
| Importantly, I don't claim unique validity based on a singular worldview,
| unlike yourself.
Your credibility rests on being able to quote me claiming such.
:ar
Bill Bereza
In article <34922385....@news.nyct.net>,
Arjun Ray <ar...@interactrx.com> wrote:
>
>
>| and thus fail to note Dan's perception in the following as a result
>| (though he seems to forsee a more complex solution than I have just
>| proposed):
>
>No, nothing particularly complex. You could profitably review
>Abigail's recent rant on why she wants lots and lots of new tags.
>
Would I be right in assuming that you disagree with Abigail on this?
I can see if everyone started making up their own elements for
everything we'd get to the point where documents would only be
meaningful to the people who created them, but if this were a
big problem than XML would be a disaster. But I don't think it
is a problem, because with XML different groups of people will
make up languages for their fields and agree on standards.
If people are able to agree on standards with XML (which would
seem to let loose the "Babel effect") couldn't we also agree
on better things for HTML?
Personally I think HTML could be more structured, and it could
use more elements. Obviously HTML couldn't possible include
elements for every specific type of structure, I think it could
use some more elements that would work for many documents. (Take
a look at <URL:http://www.concentric.net/~bereza/pedantiWEB/dtd.html>
to see what I think it could use.)
Or do you think that HTML, as it is, is good enough to represent
most structures? I'd hate to think that HTML will be left as is,
while people use XML for more structured docs.
Well, the thing I always like best about HTML was that allowed
the user to have so much control over how they saw the documents.
This is only possible because HTML has some elements for
describing content, and it seems to me that if there were
more elements, the user could have even more control. But if
people start using XML for structured documents, while using
HTML for simpler things than we'll have lost much of what
HTML gave us.
My opinion is that HTML should be able to represent the structure
of most generic documents having sections, chapters, notes, etc.
while XML would be used for very specific types of document.
So of course just adding elements to HTML won't solve our problems,
but adding some more basic elements to HTML, and letting XML handle
the rest would seem to me to be a good solution.
A slight side note: While working on designing some things for my
browser, I realized that any document which could be parsed into
a tree-like structure could also be treated as an XML document.
For example, a C source file would be parsed into functions, statements,
comments, etc. and in it's post-parsed structure, each "element"
of the C file could also be treated like an XML element. This is
where XML is a good thing, because it would be silly to add elements
for the C language to HTML, it would be useful to have an XML language
which could also represent a C source file. (I'm sure this is no
great discovery, since it seems so obvious that this is what XML
is good for.)
Jukka Korpela
On 12 Dec 1997 00:11:15 GMT, le...@macvirus.com (Susan Lesch) wrote:
>These links have survived about
>a month with no signs of going bad.
Sounds good. I'd still love to see some statement that they survive by
design, not by accident. Unfortunately, the answer from DejaNews to my
request was very helpful (really, no irony here) but didn't answer my
question. I have to retry.
>It is a two-step process to read: first the reader has to get the
>search result from dejanews.com, and then open the article there.
In fact that sounds essentially the same as what I found working. My
question was twofold: does it work realiably enough, and is there any
simpler way.
>Alfred S. Gilman may have a start on a solution in this
>Internet-Draft of 31 Aug 1997. You'll understand this better
>than I do. It is designed to replace the news: URL parts of RFCs
>1738 and 1808.
I have to check those of course. But fundamentally, the problem is not
at the RFC level but at the implementation level. Naturally it is
conceivable that modifications to the specs might make them easier to
implement.
--
Yucca, http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/