Slashdot Mirror
Obfuscated HTML Contest?
ptaff asks: "We all know the nightmare of typical HTML developer: you get different results on different browsers/platforms (and we're talking HTML only, no CSS/scripts). To make matters worse, MSIE has this ability to render completely invalid HTML code (missing tags, invalid nesting, you get the point). Mozilla and its many cousins are trying hard to keep up with the inconsistencies of today's 'web-optimized-for-MSIE', but where is the limit?
As an exercise, can you build the most malformed HTML document that can be rendered in MSIE but will choke on others browsers?"
Uroulette.
Stumbling in the dark
I hear slavering of jaws
Eaten by a grue.
Well, i guess that's the difference between theoritical stuff (HTML standard) and the practical implementation (browsers)...
Maybe also the time required for a feature to become standard HTML plays a role, think people are gonna wait some months to have a feature, when the browser (broken or anticipating the new standard) can make it already ?
Isn't that after all also how the Internet itself works usually ? ie people do something in different ways, usually without any standard, or extending one, then some mix of everything becomes 'the' new standard (RFCs & so on) ?
Tsuyoikoto ha taisetsu da ne, dakedo namida mo hitsuyousa (Strength is an important thing, but tears too are necessary)
Why not make it render something different but valid in as many different browsers as possible?
My sympathy goes out to the judges of this contest.
View source. Go ahead. Right now.
I dare you to glance through it.
You'll not sleep tonight.
are you looking for the greatest variety of broken tags, or the greatest number of broken tage, or what? i'm not sure how you could define one page as more malformed than another. i could make a page with 1,000,000 broken td tags. would that win?
This may seem pointless to many people here, but this actually serves a purpose: the creators of the browsers can use this code to analize the shortcomings of their browser.
I _know_ mozilla is more standards compliant than ie, but this is not about standards. It's about acceptance by the masses. The more sites that are rendered right, the better the chances are.
the pun is mightier than the sword
That's totally obfuscated......
I once (a few years ago) inherited a web project that was managed by Net Objects Fusion. That was bad enough, except that the hosting server only allowed uploading via Frontpage Extensions (go figure). So once any updates were done, the pages had to be exported out of Net Objects, then brought into the Frontpage project so they could be uploaded.
If you can imagine the HTML that came out of that little combo. Not pretty.
I also saw one site that looked to be a combo of MS Word and Net Objects. I still have nightmares about that one.........
Learn to Improvise
Old Style:
<APPLET code=XYZApp.class codebase=html/ align=baseline width=200 height=200> <PARAM NAME=model VALUE=models/HyaluronicAcid.xyz> No Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition v 1.3 support for APPLET!! </APPLET>New Style:
<EMBED type=application/x-java-applet;version=1.3 width=200 height=200 align=baseline code=XYZApp.class codebase=html/ model=models/HyaluronicAcid.xyz pluginspage=http://java.sun.com/products/plugin/1OK, it's not crisp and clean but not nightmare inspiring either.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Step 2: save as a web page.
The result:
Of course, it breaks the rules because it uses style sheets, but who's counting...--- Jason Olshefsky
Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)
Here is a classic.
It just looks dumb in Mozilla, but you can use IE to truly experience the horror.
I believe this was originally designed as an object lesson that HTML email and usenet posts are a bad idea.
There is no author identified, but I'd love to know who came up with this one.
I think it's better to find pages that use such code. example - the www.europcar.com .de .fr pages the use a javascript menu that does ONLY work in MSIE on windows. No MacIE, Mozilla(choose your platform), Opera 7 or other alternative browsers. You simply cannot see the menu or cannot use it - therefore you cannot navigate. There are more pages out there, writing this code on purpose is pointless, because it has already been written ;) Find those pages and complain, make a publicly available list of invalid non-working HTML pages. Write the webmasters about your problems. And of course show workarounds so that those "programmers" can see and change their mistakes.
A good reason for coding obfuscated (be it valid or invalid) HTML would be to create a repository of "real world" code for Browser developers out there to check if it works with their product. Then of course a "desired output" image should be attached to the code.
Creating a blacklist of corporate pages using invalid html is my favourite idea, but the mentioned repository would help a lot coders out there...They even have a 5k version of Wolfenstein.
And most of the entries work in IE only. :(
Joe
http://josephgrossberg.blogspot.com
Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
I'm setting up a value web-hosting system in the next 6 months using Fractional T1.. and one of the plans is to run all submitted HTML code through the validator script, and add a warning message at the bottom of the page if it has errors. This will be mentioned in the SLA.
Just doing my part to put the standards back into the web.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
-wjc.
"I figure you're here 'cause you need some whacko who's willing to stick his finger in the fan. So who are we helping?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
to write Strict XHTML DTD based Obfuscated XHTML, that chokes one XHTML browser and works on the other XHTML browser. And offcourse both of the browsers should funnly support Strict XHTML DTD http://docbook.sc-icc.org
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Dreamweaver routinely writes code that does not work on many versions of netscape/mozilla/phoenix (especially for linux).. Their built-in javascript stuff is the biggest culprit..
Slashdot wins the contest! All praise! Yay!
(waives around Slashdot-logo emblazoned flag)
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I think you could get pretty interesting results by layering elements one over another and creating resulting images with interfere patterns caused by letters laid over other letters. Use CSS features that MSIE doesn't implement, or has bugs in, to correct the positioning in correctly behaving browsers and @import trick for keeping NN4.x in the game.
Creating page that works only in one nonstandard browser is too easy. Creating standards compliant page that works in every browser but one buggy one should be hard enough.
_________________________
Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
the mere fact that their ideas become part of HTML proves that the community liked them, no ?
No.
It could merely be that the only reference "the community" used was written by the same company that made the browser that "the community" used to "test" the page with, and the same company also wrote the software they used to "write" the page with.
IOW... some company took advantage of the clueless drones that they created. That is, after all, their biggest asset.
After that, other browsers have to implement the same "errors" because it is easier than educating managers that *their* own sites are wrong and the one *you* made isn't... Even tho *their* site works in *their* browser, and *your* site does not.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
I don't like Internet Exploder. I don't really like Netscrape, either. But I won't fault either for rendering a page that's not completely standards compliant; I'd guess that 95% of the pages out there wouldn't render if the browsers were as strict as, for example, the HTML validator.
Doesn't Obfuscated Incompatible Code happen every time you open FrontPage?
Obfuscated HTML?! Anyone can do that! Sorry, but most HTML out there is fairly crappy.
Wouldn't an un-obfuscated HTML contest where the code is judged by how well it plays and demonstrates advanced features on multiple browsers be more challenging?
Some reusable bits may actually come about as the result of this sort of contest.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
The arrogance of "downlevel" infuriates me. They couldn't just say "other" or "non-Microsoft". The implicit assumption is that if it's not using IE, it's crap.
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
I'm not sure why you would purposely come up with bad code ... but if you want to see some good examples of bad html just surf to any goeshities page and enjoy the horror that it is.
MoRe... LaTeR... -=PJK=-
You could have a whole "weight class" for obfuscated CSS, since browser support for that standard is so uneven. (As usual, it's getting better, but I still deal regularly with users still "standardized" on Netscape 4.7x by their support people.)
LHMT
>Still got my point tho', didn't ya? ;)
Yup, I shore did.
But if you are trying to sell me something, and you can't spell, I wonder how good your product is.
If you are trying to convince me of something, and you have poor grammar, I wonder if your ideas are well thought out.
If you are trying to present tech info (a HOWTO etc.) with poor spelling/grammar, I wonder if your facts are sound.
It all comes back to credibility, I reckon. Ain't life a bitch?