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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.
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...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
funnly = fully
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
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.
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.
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!
>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?
I checked out the 5k site. Most of the entries were Flash, not that impressive. But the 5k Wolfenstein (will only work in IE on Win, yadda yadda) game you mentioned... (h,j,k,n to move, space to shoot).
Yikes! It's a small fps entirely done in JavaScript(!), including multiple independantly moving foes, and the ability to shoot them. And in less than 5 kB! I spent an hour or so reverse-engineering the program.
As far as I can tell, it works by generating the (1 bitplane BW) graphics into an array p, then creating a JavaScript source code string that contains a definition of the image (im="... static char t_bits[]={(things based on p)}"), then inserting that back into the page with document.images[0].src="javascript:count;im;", where im is the name of the variable containg the above-mentioned string...
Do check out the source code! This is heavy !!
PS. I played it a little bit more. Oh no, the thing even has scoring, multiple levels with increasing numbers of foes... (/me looks suprisedly at his once rampant, now wilting ego.)
PPS. Oh, and Window Pong (keypad numlocked 8+2) was good for a laugh, and seems more compatible.
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.