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Stories and comments across the archive that link to w3.org.

Comments · 6,785

  1. Re:This is most typical of Sun by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on The Apache/Sun Relationship Worsens

    Regarding Sun and XML, here is a story from the Sun home page back on March 10th, 1998, shortly after the XML 1.0 spec was approved:

    http://www.sun.com/980310/xml/

    Here is Jon Bosak's recollection of the orgins of the W3C's XML project:

    http://java.sun.com/xml/birth_of_xml.html/

    And here is the original W3C Working Draft of November 14th, 1996. Note at the bottom of the page, Jon Bosak, of Sun Microsystems was the chair of the SGML Editorial Review Board:

    http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xml-961114.html/

    While Sun was not directly responsible for XML, nor did Sun "invent" XML, one of the key players was on the Sun payroll.

    While you are ranting, what are your opinions on IBM's assinine attempt to allow royalty bearing standards at the W3C?

  2. Argh! Missed Preview; hit Submit by Joseph+Vigneau · · Score: 1 · on How to Fix the Unix Configuration Nightmare
    An automated tool has no clue what your ipaddress (or whatever) tag means at all. You need to provide additional context for tools to understand the semantics of the configuration data. To make configuration files understandable in a more intelligent sense, you need to either restrict the tags you use to your own configuration language, or you need to provide metadata of some sort.


    This is where XML Namespaces comes in handy. For example, "someone" can create a namespace that contains the ipaddress schema definition, which can then be used in your app's XML configuration file:

    <myapp>
    <server>
    <net:ipaddress>
    <net:protocol>tcp</net:protocol>
    <net:host>127.0.0.1</net:host>
    <net:port>8877</net:port>
    </net:ipaddress>
    </server>
    </myapp>

  3. If they bother you that much... by Fweeky · · Score: 4, Interesting · on Google Allows Sponsored Rankings...In Ads

    CSS 2 Selectors provide enough power to nuke most banner adverts, and, if you're clever enough, remove these text ads.

    CSS 3 Selectors should be even better, and let you do it on a per-website basis, which might be useful if your rules to nuke Google ads are too general to apply to all sites.

    You will need a browser that impliments them, though; Opera and Mozilla support most CSS 2 selector syntax, but IE6 does not.

    You can use the same techniques to override ugly colour schemes, change font styles and sizes and even include content. Just define it all in a user stylesheet; that's what it's there for.

    I might revive my banner killing user CSS actually, it worked quite well.. but I don't think I'll bother with Google :)

  4. If they bother you that much... by Fweeky · · Score: 4, Interesting · on Google Allows Sponsored Rankings...In Ads

    CSS 2 Selectors provide enough power to nuke most banner adverts, and, if you're clever enough, remove these text ads.

    CSS 3 Selectors should be even better, and let you do it on a per-website basis, which might be useful if your rules to nuke Google ads are too general to apply to all sites.

    You will need a browser that impliments them, though; Opera and Mozilla support most CSS 2 selector syntax, but IE6 does not.

    You can use the same techniques to override ugly colour schemes, change font styles and sizes and even include content. Just define it all in a user stylesheet; that's what it's there for.

    I might revive my banner killing user CSS actually, it worked quite well.. but I don't think I'll bother with Google :)

  5. Reminds me of HTML/CSS validators and standards by krs-one · · Score: 3, Insightful · on SQL Validator

    This reminds me of the HTML/CSS validators that the W3 (w3.org) set forth since HTML and CSS were concieved. However, since they set for the standards, it seems everyone should follow them. Obviously, this is not true. IE support for CSS2 is almost non-existant, with Mozilla coming in with the most support.

    I think that this will become the same way. There will be many databases out there that support some of the standards, but not all of them. Some databases will be far ahead of others in standards support.

    I am what you would call a standard zealot for just about any standard. Standards help any programmer (or any person for that matter) when doing anything. Standards (or at least what they _should_ do) set out a group of rules that everyone should follow in order to make portability extremely easy (again, this is from a programmers POV). However, you have different companies who want to create their own standards (and then not even follow them, MS comes to mind :)) and some companies who honestly try to support all of the standards they can (Mozilla).

    I hope that DB's start to support the most current standard and fast. That way, writing abstracted DB code in any language will become *extremely* easy.

    -Vic

  6. Re:XML as a starting point perhaps? by khuber · · Score: 5, Insightful · on How to Fix the Unix Configuration Nightmare
    In the writer's outline section he has a few bullet-points that scream "XML!"

    I'd agree that XML is a good basis, but "XML" really doesn't provide much by itself. It's just a file format that is human readable. If you just use XML with a bunch of proprietary tags, your own XML language so to speak, you really don't gain much over the existing different syntax config files.

    An automated tool has no clue what your ipaddress (or whatever) tag means at all. You need to provide additional context for tools to understand the semantics of the configuration data. To make configuration files understandable in a more intelligent sense, you need to either restrict the tags you use to your own configuration language, or you need to provide metadata of some sort.

    Why is this intelligence necessary? Well there are all sorts of dependencies and relationships in configuration files. You might want a GUI to let you know if you change something that may break another setting, and so on. Plus ideally you would only allow legal values to be set. Data typing could be done with W3C XML Schema Definition Language, or RELAX NG schemas.

    Which brings me to RDF, which I think would be better suited to this task than XML alone. If you use RDF (see http://www.w3.org/RDF/ ) you make it much easier to have a self-describing format that tools can do more intelligent things with than raw XML. While I don't think RDF, DAML+OIL, et al is enough to create a Semantic Web as Tim Berners-Lee is hoping, it _is_ a step in a higher-level direction that will support more intelligence in processing data.

    Mozilla already uses RDF for various configuration files and I'm sure there are other applications that do too. Mozilla has a whole bunch of stuff about their RDF here.

    XML is just a tree of "stuff" in human-readable format. RDF lets you set up properties and relationships in the data in a standardized way. I don't have a brilliant example to prove this to skeptics, but really it is a better way to represent a lot of types of data you want to be able to query. There are many knowledge bases, expert systems and other query engines already out there using RDF and even higher-level languages like DAML+OIL.

    -Kevin

  7. Re:XML as a starting point perhaps? by roundand · · Score: 2, Informative · on How to Fix the Unix Configuration Nightmare

    Other points in the article that scream XML to me:

    * A key element would be the configuration format description file. This would list the configuration options for a given piece of software, giving for each one the name, type (boolean, list, string, etc.), options, category (for subsections within the config), and help text (short and long).

    This looks very much like XML Schema to me - it can specify all these data types, including enumerations, and a schema-aware XML editor (eg XML Spy in the Wondows world - anyone know the best Linux option?) will prompt you with help-lists of valid elements and attributes, or list of enumerated values. Doesn't do help text by default, but has an expansion mechanism (xsd:appinfo) for adding application-specific to be added to a schema.

    * It all needs to be language, distribution, and operating system neutral, so as to avoid turning off any potential software developers who might find it useful.

    I don't know of any programming language or O/S that doesn't have an XML Parser (many don't yet have XML Schema support, but if you stay off specifying default values you don't need that at run time). And XML is good for natural languages - UTF 8 or UTF 16 from start.

    There aren't many formats that are equally machine and human readable, even fewer that allow document struture and data typing, and still fewer that have open or free implementations on practically all platforms.

  8. Re:Mozilla as a primary browser by Kiwi · · Score: 5, Informative · on Mozilla Development Roadmap Updated
    Anyway, what I want to do is run linux on my k6-2 333 or heaven forbid my p1-100 and still be able to browse the web.

    This is what I like the most about open source software; the diversity that is a natural consequence of the open-source model has resulted in a number of browsers:

    Note that all of these, with the exception of Konqueror, use the same "Gecko" rendering engine.

    There are also some proprietary browsers:

    • Netscape. All of the browsers can be freely downloaded, and Netscape Communicator will work fine on the Pentium 100 machine.
    • Opera
    This only lists the browsers which will give a reasonable browsing experience with the majority of web sites out there. There are some other open-source browsers, too, such as Amaya (still being updated, it may even be usable for normal web browsing), Grail, among others. And, of course, for the remote ssh or non-X connection, there is Lynx, W3M, and Links.

    - Sam

  9. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  10. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  11. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  12. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  13. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  14. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  15. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  16. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  17. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  18. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  19. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful · on W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
  20. Comcast's transparent proxy by Leebert · · Score: 1 · on Is Comcast Intercepting Packets?
    Comcast does indeed run a transparent proxy, at least on my connection. As someone else pointed out to me, they also leave off the "via:" header, which breaks the HTTP spec.

    I sent Comcast a message about it, but they ignored it. If more people complained (ahem), perhaps they would be more willing to actually pay attention to standards.

  21. The Slashdot Drinking Game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic · on eDigital MXP100 with Voice Control
    LotCaf: The Slashdot Drinking Game The Slashdot Drinking Game

    Brought to you courtesy of the clearly-a-sarky-observation-piece dept and can't-be-arsed-to-copy-the-colour-scheme-or-layout dept.

    faux instructions

    1. Surround yourself with a handful of Slashdot-aware friends.
    2. Surround yourself with a variety of alcoholic beverages.
    3. Familiarise yourself with things to slur when sufficiently intoxicated. These may include - but are not limited to: "Whaaaassssup!" and "I regret to inform you, ossifer, that my alcohol may contain trace amounts of blood".
    4. Gather friends around a large monitor.
    5. Familiarise yourself with the observations set out below, and decide among yourself which drinks to down, and when.
    6. Load a web-browser, and visit Slashdot. Open up an article on practically any subject; display preferences set to 'flat, threshold 1, oldest first'.
    7. Scroll down the page, slow enough so that even the booziest of observers has enough time to read and comprehend each post. As per the pre-arranged rules, consume a beverage of your choice.
    8. CMP state,#bladdered : BNE stage_7


    real instructions
    1. Read the observations listed below.
    2. Depending on whether you agree with them or not, either nod sagely and concur, "True, true" or scowl angrily and accuse the author of smoking crack.


    the actual observations

    Drink a quantity of alcoholic substance and/or nod solemnly whenever...

    • A poor analogy is constructed, embellished and never refuted, especially when it relates to the politics of MP3s, the feasibility of designing accessible websites, the ramifications of gun laws or the relative advantages/disadvantages of Intellectual Property.
    • A large number of words in an article are unnecessarily hyperlinked, thus causing the hapless (yet curious) reader to place the mouse pointer over each and every one, in the hope that at least one of them might be in any way interesting.
    • Someone says "Ummmm... you did read the article, didn't you?"
      • ...but they probably didn't read it themselves.
    • An informative article is moderated as 'insightful', or vice versa.
    • Someone claims that their post consists solely of the cold harsh facts of truth, while the opponent has to resort to name-calling, FUD or other such beastly tactics.
    • The pre-emptive plea: "I'll probably get moderated down for saying this..." which of course gets moderated up.
      • ...they were posting anonymously to "protect their karma".
    • The 'Slashdot mentality' is described and 'rebelled' against, to the author's karmic advantage.
      • ...they are effectively moderated up simply for voicing an opinion which is (or claims to be...) 'radically different'
      • ...plausible examples of the 'groupthink conformity' are mentioned (e.g. pro-Linux, pro-Open Source, anti-Microsoft, anti-spam, pro-Libertarian, anti-censorship, pro-Napster etc).
      • ...implausible examples are mentioned ("I'll probably get moderated down for voicing this opinion in what is clearly a predominantly anti-taildocking forum")
      • ...the author talks of 'Slashbots', 'Sheepdot' or other such anti-Slashdot rhetoric ("Open Source, Closed Minds... we are Slashdot")
      • ...a clearly inflammatory post is saved from a rightful (Score: -1, Flamebait) with the cautionary "this isn't a troll, I'm just pointing out the facts" or better still, the unconvincing "this isn't a troll - I don't even know what a troll is."
      • ...the score makes it clear that Slashdot moderators are becoming more sympathetic to pro-Microsoft posts than pro-Linux ones.
    • A poster recognizes a troll and comprehends the futility in replying to such, but does so anyway with the resignation, "I know I'm not supposed to reply to trolls, but..."
    • A poster is accused of being a troll despite being not even remotely inflammatory or controversial.
    • After being berated for posting an insensitive, illogical or offensive post, the author caves in and posts, "*sheesh* it was only a joke! Evidentally you have no sense of humour!"
    • Ignoring the numerous replies to a "It's funny. Laugh" article that clearly demonstrate that the posters have indeed found it to be amusing, someone suggests that everyone is taking it "waaaaay too seriously."
    • Something is criticized as being "cool" or "trendy".
    • A posting ends with the author saying, "eh, whatever", "go figure" or "*shrug*".
    • Someone utilises any of the following terms or phrases: zealot, jihadist, sheeple, hysterical, misguided, whine, apologists, "funny, isn't it, how...".
  22. Re:Well, here's an idea.. by Cow4263 · · Score: 1 · on Google Programming Contest

    Good idea. But like many great ideas before you, it is actually disproven in pratice.

    The site I am going to use is one that most of us would consider to be a great source of infomation, google itself.

    You can view the results here and as you can see they aren't too pleasing. First of all, it doesn't have a doc type (which is a fatal error, and shows another underling problem with the plan -- doc type guessing). So after giving it a doc type of HTML 4.01 Transitional (btw, lower doc types didn't fare any better) it came out with about 28 errors (its quite possible I miscounted, shoot me).

    28 / 13 = 2 errors per line

    (rounded down out of niceness)

    There are numberous reasons that you could argue in favor of google (ie. the insanely long line 13 that could be broken down to at least 5-10 more lines).

    In the long run, I think that such an implantation would benefit web developers making them realize they should shape up their html or lose hits as a result. And, this could also help burden the transition to xhtml (which isn't nearly as tolerant as html was\is). However, the users would ulitimately suffer in the mean time, which violates one of google's main policies: always do things that helps the user.

  23. Re:Well, here's an idea.. by Winged+Cat · · Score: 3, Insightful · on Google Programming Contest

    Perhaps the W3C's HTML Validator or something similar? Rate the page based on conformance to the HTML specs (say, number of errors divided by length of HTML), in the hopes that this has some correlation to how generally useful the page is (i.e., if they can't be bothered to follow the technical rules, they probably don't have enough of a clue to put out content of genuine use to their users instead of just brochureware or scams or the like)? This wouldn't be perfect, of course, and utility is very much a subjective measure...

  24. Annotated specifications by ThomasXSteel · · Score: 0 · on What Kind of Books do You Want?
    After completing an XML based project and slogging through a number of w3c specs, I can tell you there is a need for annotated specifications with code examples. A good example is XML: The Annotated Specification by Bob DuCharme.

    Have you ever tried to read the XML Schema spec without guidance? It's not for the faint of heart.

  25. A good start .. by Eloquence · · Score: 2, Offtopic · on NACI: Gov't of South Africa Pushes Open Source

    .. would be to clean up the "HTML" produced by Microsoft Word for their report. My eyes are burning!

  26. Re: rendering improved?(after 9.4) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll · on mozilla.org Releases Mozilla 0.9.8

    If thay can't get a SIMPLE thing like rendering right

    A lot of jackasses think Mozilla's rendering is screwed up. On most pages that look bad in Mozilla, it's actually IE's rendering that's screwed up, and the web developer has used IE to test with. You see, there're these little things called standards . . .

  27. HTTP/1.1 402 Payment Required by yerricde · · Score: 2 · on A Warrior's Programming Language

    ERROR 404. Your have not met the required funds to view this page.

    The HTTP RFC actually specifies such an error code: HTTP/1.1 402 Payment Required

  28. Re:Sounds good to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Game Park Handheld Encourages Open Development

    While it might seem clever to do so its web logs full of user agent records saying IE that give these "web managers" the idea that its cool to write code renderable in IE only instead of writing to WC3 standards.

    Any ideas on what all of slashdot should set its user-agent header to? If we could come up with a standard "any w3c renderer" string we would *all* use (and make sure that the proxy server at the >100 user office reflects out philosophy ;-) ) then it would have a nice (positive) impact on the browser usage logs.
    however if we where to use Amaya Or something like that we might be able to pick up where the counting of normal amaya users started (not much I guess ;-) ) and still get the w3c works for me message out.

  29. Re:the NEW site by kimihia · · Score: 2 · on Super Bowl Commercial Skewer-a-thon

    http://www.w3.org/WAI/report

    They can word it better than you can. :-)

  30. Re:bad HTML is a giveaway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on The SEC and Fake Investment Sites

    The BGCOLOR attribute has been obsolete for years. If you actually cared about standards, you'd use Cascading Style Sheets and prefer that other sites do the same.

  31. NeXT & the Web by CousinChimpy · · Score: 1 · on Mac OS X: Game Developer's Playground
    A favorite link of mine is Tim's w3.org page about the first WWW browser he wrote (actually, it was a browser/editor).

    To quote Tim: "I wrote the program using a NeXT computer. This had the advantage that there were some great tools available -it was a great computing environment in general. In fact, I could do in a couple of months what would take more like a year on other platforms, because on the NeXT, a lot of it was done for me already. There was an application builder to make all the menus as quickly as you could dream them up. there were all the software parts to make a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get - in other words direct manipulation of text on screen as on the printed - or browsed page) word processor. I just had to add hypertext, (by subclassing the Text object)"

    His observations regarding the productivity of NeXTSTEP development ring true for MacOSX today...

    CousinChimpy
    (Troy Stephens)

  32. Re:GNU and W3C Standards by ergo98 · · Score: 2 · on Free Software Magazine

    So very true. As another poster mentioned: Normally when you use the xhtml logo you directly link to the validation page for that page (indeed that is the html that the W3C page gives you), which is a sort of circular "keep 'em honest" type check to keep stuff like this from happening. How hilarious.

  33. GNU and W3C Standards by AirLace · · Score: 5, Funny · on Free Software Magazine
    I've noticed they've placed a W3C XHTML 1.0 logo at the bottom of their index page. This is a mark that shows the designer has conformed to Web standards and provided a basic level of accessibility for disabled users. It typically links to the W3C page validator. They probably put it there to show that GNU supports open standards, but the page is in fact nothing like well formed XHTML, and contains numerous basic HTML errors that could make the page inaccessible to page-readers for the blind, for example.

    I'm not saying everyone who puts up a webpage should have to write perfect HTML, but why do they feel the need to put the logo of compliance there if it's just a lie? I know GNU supports open standards by principle, but they should do more than just pay lip-service. Either take the logo off the page, or fix the HTML!

  34. GNU and W3C Standards by AirLace · · Score: 5, Funny · on Free Software Magazine
    I've noticed they've placed a W3C XHTML 1.0 logo at the bottom of their index page. This is a mark that shows the designer has conformed to Web standards and provided a basic level of accessibility for disabled users. It typically links to the W3C page validator. They probably put it there to show that GNU supports open standards, but the page is in fact nothing like well formed XHTML, and contains numerous basic HTML errors that could make the page inaccessible to page-readers for the blind, for example.

    I'm not saying everyone who puts up a webpage should have to write perfect HTML, but why do they feel the need to put the logo of compliance there if it's just a lie? I know GNU supports open standards by principle, but they should do more than just pay lip-service. Either take the logo off the page, or fix the HTML!

  35. Re:SOAP and CGI by simm_s · · Score: 2 · on Security Community Reacts to Microsoft Announcement

    My point is SOAP can be used as RPC. Thus I could use SOAP to make a function call, pass in some arguments, and get a return value.
    see: using soap as RPC

    If I exploit the web server and manipulate the CGI programs to return bogus values you are introuble.
    If I exploit the web server and manipulate the CGI/SOAP programs to return bogus values you are even more trouble.

    (simm_s) The difference is that at least on the client side is that if I hack a website with SOAP web services the results can now affect the software running locally. Thus manipulating software on the client side to do things they were not intended to do.
    (Zeinfeld) No, this is not the difference. In IIS the Web service runs as just another back-end service provider.
    If you read what I wrote, I was talking about client side not server side. I wrote that twice for goodness stake!

    The difference is subtle to the unknowing end user since both CGI and SOAP provide services to the end user. With CGI programs in the backend, I log on to the website and content is generated dynamically. With SOAP my program makes a function call, the CGI/SOAP backend generates a return value to be used by the program. CGI is for web browsers, SOAP is for software in general (that is the danger).

  36. 'nix community standards by mmaddox · · Score: 3, Insightful · on Security Community Reacts to Microsoft Announcement

    Being quite the 'nix afficionado myself, I understand some of the rather hateful sentiments expressed toward MS. I take issue with some of Mr. Schneier's (whom I greatly respect) comments, however, as being opposed to the mindset of progress.

    For instance, Implementation of Microsoft SOAP, a protocol running over HTTP precisely so it could bypass firewalls, should be withdrawn.
    strikes me as an ill-conceived statement. SOAP, for the uninformed, is just an XML-based protocol carried through HTTP. It doesn't BYPASS the firewall, it passes through the port generally held open for the use of web servers. We're packaging an XML envelope that a SOAP implementation can open and use, not passing some magic packet that your web server can use to format its harddrives. Firewalls can be made to use SOAP information to block SOAP packets, and servers don't have to respond to ill-formed, ill-conceived, or ill-meanings SOAP calls. How the heck can removing SOAP all-together be considered a practical security measure, anymore than simply removing the web server from the net entirely? Sure, you might get your C-2 rating, but is it worthwhile?

    MS has attempted to create a high-functionality server platform, one that installs with the purpose of usability as its default. This simplifies the installation process, creating a process that relies less on the intelligence and experience of the user and more on the good nature of MS itself (as the one who created the installation system). MS does not necessarily have YOUR interests in mind, but the interests of a non-specific "user" in mind - a user whose needs profile may or may not fit your own. Microsoft needs to expand their thinking to include the needs of secure-minded individuals, granted, but the needs of ALL users should still be taken into account, and documentation created that explains the differences.

    I'll be the first to admit that Windows has security issues, however, I contend that the nature of networking imposes security problems on ALL operating systems. I doubt too many persons could implement a secure 'nix OR a secure Win box. Intelligence and experience are required in both.

  37. Re:IE does not kick Netscape's behind anymore by JohnSwinbank · · Score: 1 · on AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat?

    XHTML (as opposed to IE just bailing and dumping the XML tree)

    This is incorrect. See, for example, http://compsoc.net/. That's pure, not transitional, XHTML 1.1, which validates perfectly. All versions of IE that I've tried -- 5, 5.5 and 6 -- display the page properly (barring bugs in their CSS engines), not just the XML tree.

    Don't get me wrong; personally, I use Galeon (based on Mozilla) as my browser of choice. But IE is a lot more capable than you give it credit for.
  38. Re:Stop Spreading FUD... by JohnSwinbank · · Score: 1 · on AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat?

    Recent versions of IE are quite happy to display XHTML 1.1. See, for example, http://compsoc.net/, which the W3C agrees is valid XHTML and, indeed, valid CSS.



    There are a few nasty kludges in the CSS to work around browser bugs -- some in IE, mostly in Netscape 4.x. Compared to the latter, all versions of IE I've pointed at the page have excellent CSS support.

  39. Re:Stop Spreading FUD... by JohnSwinbank · · Score: 1 · on AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat?

    Recent versions of IE are quite happy to display XHTML 1.1. See, for example, http://compsoc.net/, which the W3C agrees is valid XHTML and, indeed, valid CSS.



    There are a few nasty kludges in the CSS to work around browser bugs -- some in IE, mostly in Netscape 4.x. Compared to the latter, all versions of IE I've pointed at the page have excellent CSS support.

  40. But you're serving it with HTML 4 mimetype by yerricde · · Score: 1 · on AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat?

    My webpage is Fully Compliant XHTML 1.0 Transitional

    Sure, the pages might be (and so are mine), but the site isn't. Your web server returns this HTTP response header:

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
    Content-Location: http://www.25hoursaday.com/index.html
    Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 08:44:07 GMT
    Content-Type: text/html
    Accept-Ranges: bytes
    Last-Modified: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 21:40:57 GMT
    ETag: "08b4fc7a9cc11:970"
    Content-Length: 5313

    "text/html" is the content type for 1. HTML 4.01, and 2. XHTML that conforms to Appendix C (HTML 4 back compatibility). When you send it as "application/xhtml+xml" as the W3C suggests, IE will give you a tree instead of a page.

  41. Graceful degradation by yerricde · · Score: 3, Insightful · on AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat?

    We support standards. The standard for browsing web pages is not Netscape, it's not W3XXX, it is IE(4,5,6).

    Can you provide a reference to publicly available (even for a nominal fee) official documentation in the English language as to what constitutes a conforming implementation of such a standard? (In other words, where can I obtain docs about the IE DOM?)

    We will degrade gracefully on the other platforms

    In order to degrade gracefully, you will have to make all content reasonably accessible to all users. Frown on framesets and unnecessary ECMAScript. Frown on images without appropriate alt text. Frown on sites mostly made in Flash because the visually impaired cannot use Flash content, whereas they can use HTML through a screenreader or Braille display and a text-mode browser such as Lynx, Links, or w3m.

    and freely distribute IE (free to distribute after all) to those poor users who don't have IE today.

    IE for x86 architecture is part of Microsoft Windows. Where can I pick up my free copy of Windows? And how can I make sure that my copy of IE won't catch Son of Nimda from your server?

  42. Your XHTML may be valid, but... by sacolcor · · Score: 1 · on AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat?

    ...the CSS validator doesn't seem to be quite so happy. Are you certain that your CSS and W3C DOM are as valid as your XHTML?

  43. Stop Spreading FUD... by Carnage4Life · · Score: 4, Informative · on AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat?

    Netscape 4's perhaps, but with regard to IE 6 vs. Mozilla 0.9.8 (effectively Netscape 6.3; 0.9.8 is due to be released in a week), I have to hand this round to Mozilla. Mozilla starts faster than IE, supports more CSS, supports XHTML (as opposed to IE just bailing and dumping the XML tree),

    My webpage is Fully Compliant XHTML 1.0 Transitional and renders better in IE 6.0 than in Mozilla (as text and images not this "dumping the XML tree that you speak of). Mozilla is a great browser but when I see people spreading lies in an effort to spread its usage I feel disgusted.

    Let the browser stand on its own merits instead of spreading FUD to promote it. This sullies the name of Mozilla and all that work on it.

  44. Re:Oh come on... by skaiser · · Score: 1 · on Site Review: 2002 Olympics

    Sure, I think Flash can even be OK, too, if there's also an alternative means of accessing the information. Macromedia has a Flash Accessibility Extension Kit that will help Flash creators to produce an accessible version, too. I don't think Flash should be used just to produce something flashy. It's not the tool itself but how it's used, in my humble opinion.

    Regarding the two levels of WCAG, I agree. It seems that the Olympics sites ought to be required by law to conform to those standards, actually. FYI, not only does the U.S. have the Section 508 Guidelines for government sites, increasingly more countries are also working on or have already established guidelines to help ensure that anyone can access their sites.

  45. Re:W3 Validator by fuali · · Score: 0 · on Site Review: 2002 Olympics

    Check this. As a web developer, it's nearly impossible to cover all the spec.

  46. Re:Oh come on... by skaiser · · Score: 3, Insightful · on Site Review: 2002 Olympics

    I don't feel it's sufficient that most but not all people can access the Olympics site. That could be said about sidewalks without ramps for wheelchairs, too -- most people can step up the step fine, so why bother with ramps. Some people just don't get it until they're the ones in the wheelchairs. Yet others are donating their Saturdays to pouring the cement and paying for the supplies, too. Seems to be the way the world goes around.

    The point in my initial review that Andy King then picked up for WebReference.com is not at all that they're using frames, Flash, JavaScript, and PDF -- those are all fine. The developers didn't also follow the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to include the NOSCRIPT tags, the NOFRAMES tags and other recommendations that would provide the alternate means of accessing the site.

    The reason I wrote about this site in particular is because of the Olympics being such a major worldwide event and its even greater importance for anyone in the world to be able to access. If the developers had included the elements I mentioned above and in my review (and Andy's too), people who've turned off JavaScript (and there are plenty of them out there), using screen readers, Lynx, or other devices wouldn't be completely locked out as they are now.

  47. W3 Validator by singularity · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Site Review: 2002 Olympics

    After attempting to get W3.org's HTML validator to check the entire page, I finally just checked the main frame. Notice that I had to force HTML 4.01 Frameset, since the document does not include its own DOCTYPE.

    Results can be found at this link. Needless to say, the site failed miserably, even with Frameset set.

    iCab's built in HTML checker found 238 errors in the main frame alone, not to mention the dozens of errors in the surrounding frames.

    Note that I am not suggesting that the writers are ever going to write strict HTML or XHTML (although they should for accessability), but that writing *such bad* HTML that some browsers choke on it is simply unacceptable *for anyone*, especially a web page like the Winter Olympics site.

  48. W3 Validator by singularity · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Site Review: 2002 Olympics

    After attempting to get W3.org's HTML validator to check the entire page, I finally just checked the main frame. Notice that I had to force HTML 4.01 Frameset, since the document does not include its own DOCTYPE.

    Results can be found at this link. Needless to say, the site failed miserably, even with Frameset set.

    iCab's built in HTML checker found 238 errors in the main frame alone, not to mention the dozens of errors in the surrounding frames.

    Note that I am not suggesting that the writers are ever going to write strict HTML or XHTML (although they should for accessability), but that writing *such bad* HTML that some browsers choke on it is simply unacceptable *for anyone*, especially a web page like the Winter Olympics site.

  49. W3 Validator by singularity · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Site Review: 2002 Olympics

    After attempting to get W3.org's HTML validator to check the entire page, I finally just checked the main frame. Notice that I had to force HTML 4.01 Frameset, since the document does not include its own DOCTYPE.

    Results can be found at this link. Needless to say, the site failed miserably, even with Frameset set.

    iCab's built in HTML checker found 238 errors in the main frame alone, not to mention the dozens of errors in the surrounding frames.

    Note that I am not suggesting that the writers are ever going to write strict HTML or XHTML (although they should for accessability), but that writing *such bad* HTML that some browsers choke on it is simply unacceptable *for anyone*, especially a web page like the Winter Olympics site.

  50. Oh come on... by maniac11 · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Site Review: 2002 Olympics

    Not only do I question the "Site Review" category as "Stuff that matters," but the article seems overly nitpicky to me.

    Come on folks, Frames are not only accepted and common, but part of the w3 spec since 1997. JavaScript? The DOM has been standardized for at least as long and JavaScript support has been available (funky, but basically available) since 2.0 browsers... PDF? Well, a fine solution for encapsulated, printable documents (like maps?!!)

    I'm all for accessibilty, but this site doesn't seem to be unfairly limiting to me... unless you're using lynx...