It may, however, be a bad business decision for the university. I don't care what/.ers think, freely giving away information very often does not lead to profit.
People pay universities for a piece of paper saying that they have fulfilled their requirements to be given a degree. Don't confuse that with the education you may or may not happen to get on the way to receiving said piece of paper. I'm able to learn much more efficiently and easily (and am more motivated to do so) on my own, but I need to bend over and do what a University tells me to do for four years in order to get that piece of paper so that people will hire me. Unfortunately in this market, people don't hire on merit, they want proof in the form of a degree (which I argue is no proof at all) that you can handle a job.
Anyway, as long as Universities have fancy pieces of paper with distinctive fonts (and latin, if you're lucky), their business will continue to do just fine.
...but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?
Believe it or not, there are still people that haven't ported their software to linux. They need Solaris laptops (or worse yet, they lug around a workstation) to show off their wares to potential customers.
Personally, I think it's silly. Porting to linux is a great idea for a number of reasons, the ability to run on a plethora of cheap laptops not being the least.
With the atitude that the frees/wan project maintains, we will never see freeswan merged with mainstream kernel... hell... they still refuse to take patches from us citiziens and residents (that includes linus)
Considering the US's asinine stance on crypto export, that's just good sense.
That said, there's no reason the frees/wan code couldn't go into the kernel in a stable form, but still be maintained separately overseas.
WorldCom will use the money for incentives to retain 325 employees, mostly sales and service people in its MCI and network and products services units.
Which, of course, means that $1M will be split among the 325 employees, with the remaining $24M going to the executives for the brilliant idea of giving out bonuses to retain good employees.
The latest browser stats [onestat.com] show that Netscape 4 has 1.2% of the market and that Mozilla 1.x has 0.8% of the market. This means that web developers need to spend more time working with the 94.9% of the population that uses Internet Explorer than the decided minority that uses another browser.
The problem with this argument is that many people take this to mean that they should design explicitly for IE, and forget about the other platforms. Coding to standards is exactly the right way to go, and I don't think you should do anything to work around bugs in browsers, unless you can do so without compromising standard behavior. Coding specifically for IE, however, is ignoring most of the benefits that the web brought the world in the first place.
The browser you use, on the other hand, is entirely your choice. You do have the ability to use Internet Explorer.
Well, I use a different operating system because it supports my work much better than Windows (and because Microsoft is evil and I don't want to pay for the wrongs they do). Should I buy another machine just so that I can run IE? This is obviously different from choice as related to disability or race, but it's also not as simple as, "I'm just being difficult and not using IE."
Timeout...this is not evil. Someone sniping 14 people 'just because' is evil. Someone attempting to wipe a race off the planet is evil.
Nice. Way to work that gratuitous sniper reference into a completely unrelated discussion. So what's you're criterion for being evil? Killing people? Killing people without justification? I think there's room for different levels of evil here. Score one for the pedants.
Fact is, there is nothing illegal about them installing software on your computer with your consent.
Telling someone that they need this software installed in order to use their cable modem and then installing spyware is not exactly with their consent. You might want to read the Constitution sometime. Start with the fourth amendment.
Don't read the Aqua Guidelines, read the OS 8 Guidelines, or better yet, the first version of the book they published. Apple has really forsaken their ideals on this with Mac OS X. The principles they started out with were really well thought-out. Everything had a reason, usually derived from or metaphor for familiar concepts from the real world. I did a comparison a while ago of the Aqua HIG and some earlier HIG, I think the original, and it's ridiculous. They've just cut out huge chunks of some of the most insightful text.
I guess the principles just didn't fit in with the cute theme they wanted. Pfft! I've been an Apple fan for a long time, but I'm running linux on my TiBook. Mac OS X just pisses me off.
No kidding. "Critical Kerberos Flaw Revealed" is not exactly an appropriate headline for a fscking buffer overflow. Getting a bit sensational now, aren't we?
It's not a flaw in Kerberos, it's a bug in kadmind4.
Thanks, Progeny! This is what free software is about. Debian provides a great base system, which works incredibly well for those who use it. Progeny has other ideas for it, so they extend it to work better for their target audience.
It's hard to complain about that.
Oh, except, it's stifling innovation, and commercialization. I forgot. Damn.
Nor does it make sense to hack together an installer that only works on x86, creating more work down the road when the other platforms have to be supported.
You're speaking as if Debian were a company. It's not. It's a group of developers who work on what they need most or are most interested in. If you want a better installer for Debian, you're welcome to write one. People are working on one, but personally, I don't see a compelling need that would warrant taking developers away from another part of Debian.
Bringing more inexperienced users to the platform will just place more burden on the hardy few that answer peoples' questions, respond to bogus bug reports, etc. Those users are better off with a distribution targeted to them.
And BTW, you attempts to paint me as a moron are becoming annoying. I do know what I am talking about, even if we don't agree. I would appreciate if you would refrain trying to imply that I am ignorant, in your reply, and just reply.
I'm sorry. I don't mean to personally attack you. I'm getting frustrated because you really don't understand what I'm saying, as is abundantly clear from your comments, and you don't seem to be attempting to take a step back and look at what I'm really trying to say, but rather to come up with points in return which sometimes don't hold up to an even cursory check of your logic (such as the calculator example), which only hinders a productive conversation.
The point is, as soon as you depart from the controlled world of platform-specific APIs (even then, systems are different and you have to account for that) you enter a world where presentation mechanisms vary greatly. Your browser window will be a different size from mine, your gamma will be different, we may not be able to display the same number of colors, we probably don't have the same fonts, I may not be able to display graphics at all. That doesn't mean you have to settle for the common denominator, but if your information is of any value and stands apart from the presentation mechanism you use - i.e. you're information is not the animation itself - you should make sure that your information is at least readable on everyone's platforms. To do otherwise is to defeat most of the advantages of using a web platform.
There is a place for flash and other such things on the web, but it isn't in critical navigation points, or as the sole display of information. You can do whatever you want with your own personal fluffy site, but if you're designing for a company who has customers, you're doing the company a disservice if you're excluding a portion of the potential client base. Assuming that everyone accessing your site is using the same browsing paradigm is hindering progress of the web, rather than furthering it. Why? Because with markup that's used properly, people can access your information in ways that you may have never dreamed of. Cell-phones, PDAs, and other devices could be very useful for accessing information on the web. That usefulness is diminished, however, by sites that assume a 1024x768 browser window with flash capability, javascript, and popup windows.
Again, this doesn't mean that you can't use those technologies or others. It does mean that they should be used purposefully, when it makes sense to do so, and in a way that doesn't obfuscate the information from browsers that can't handle them. This is entirely possible to accomplish, and doesn't require too much extra work. It does require that you be mindful of it from the beginning, and you understand the basic fact that the web is not accessed only by IE, or even mozilla/netscape/opera, but by many different browsing technologies.
My other basic premise is that to assume a given client, such as IE, is counterproductive, because you suffer from the drawbacks of trying to make HTML do what it was not intended to do (or was indended to inhibit), while not benefitting from the advantages given to you by a rich platform-specific API.
And BTW, you attempts to paint me as a moron are becoming annoying. I do know what I am talking about, even if we don't agree. I would appreciate if you would refrain trying to imply that I am ignorant, in your reply, and just reply.
I'm sorry. I don't mean to personally attack you. I'm getting frustrated because you really don't understand what I'm saying, as is abundantly obvious from your comments, and you
No, the principles upon which HTML was designed. If you don't understand the original design, you shouldn't be trying to extend it to new uses. Most people are just ignorant of the principles the web is based on, and use "innovation" or the like as an excuse for their ignorance.
Yes it is. You can view web pages via gopher web gateways. Many "pure HTML" pages don't come up right. You should design web pages so I can view them in my gopher browser.
No, it's not. Come on, try to use your brain a little. You can't watch TV on your radio. If you have a browser that understands HTML, properly written pages will render correctly.
Why should the web be a terrible platform for what I want?
Because it was designed specifically to discourage it.
Then make HTML so that I *can* do those things in a platform non-specific manner. People use these kludges because they can't "get the silly image in the right place" or want menus on their page.
Well, that's what CSS, XML, XSL, etc. are for. Trying to "get the silly image in the right place" is a perfect example of the ignorance/misunderstanding I'm talking about. You can't control that! You're not dealing with a printed page, you're dealing with something more nebulous.
I don't want to force anyone to do anything.
That statement was referring to the users of your websites, who you suggest should view your pages exactly as you intended (ignoring the fact that this is not possible), rather than in the manner that is most useful to them.
You're the one that wants to force people to not use technologies like Flash, streaming video, animated GIFs, font tags, etc. on the web when it is clear that most people like these things.
I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. I'm not even suggesting that people shouldn't use any of those technologies. What I am suggesting is that people should understand the premise of HTML before they try to graft other technologies onto it and corrupt it to achieve things that HTML was designed, with good reason, to inhibit.
If I want my content available to cell phones, then I should make sure that it can be viewed on cell phones. If I want it available on text terminals, then I should make sure that it can be viewed on text terminals.
If you want platform-specificity you should use an API which actually takes advantage of your platform. What you suggest is to indulge in a fallacy of platform-specificity, when really you only enjoy the disadvantages of both approaches.
Your insistence that webpages and printed pages (or any other form of data) must be different, from both a technological and ideological, escapes me.
A printed page has a single manifestation. A web page can have any number of manifestations, depending on the client used to interpret the HTML. The same page, when properly designed, will show up differently on a PDA, cell-phone, lynx, mozilla, IE, braille reader, or text-to-speech engine - conveying the same information in many different ways.
You can't go around telling people how to use the technology.
I'm not sure why not, but anyway, most people simply don't understand the principles upon which HTML is based. You may say that you don't care that HTML is supposed to be semantic markup, and you don't care about the benefits described above. I'd say that's kind of silly considering that using HTML to specify format is pretty ineffective, and causes a lot of headaches, trying to make a technology do something it was designed to prevent.
That's right, HTML was designed specifically to prevent specification of layout, for the reasons mentioned above and others. Extending technology is fine and good, but those doing it should at least understand the technology they're extending.
Yeah, you're right. I read slashdot for the solid bars in between the text. Really, you've got to be kidding me.
In fact, it's useless without being presented in a useful format.
Right, and this is exactly why HTML was designed not to be a graphic design medium. Your design for your browser window is annoying on my browser window that I keep at a different size. It's completely useless on my cellphone or PDA, and it's not readable by the blind.
Headers, footers, and navigation are vital cues to the web being a useful medium.
You're making an assumption that the medium in question works like a printed page, which is not a valid assumption on the web. Further, navigation is vital, and it is hampered by an emphasis on fancy layout over data.
PEOPLE are reading webpages and we have to make them friendly for PEOPLE to use.
That means conveying the right information to the user's browser so that PEOPLE can access the information in a way that's useful to them.
Why not? Google searches PDFs, Word docs, etc. The text for Flash is there, you just have to parse it out. It isn't any harder to search a Flash animation than it is a PDF (which you suggested in your other post as a good way to present graphically designed web sites).
I never suggested that PDF is a good way to present graphically designed web sites. I said that HTML was a poor language for graphic design, essentially that graphic design doesn't belong on the web, and that those who think it does just don't get it. Graphic design presumes a common viewing paradigm, with a relatively high set of standards to meet - it also denies the user the ability to control the presentation at a fundamental level.
Again, why not? Flash players exist for almost every platform. Maybe you should get a different system.
Well, there's an idea. I should change the platform that works perfectly for me so that I can view a bunch of flash animations that detract from my ability to effectively navigate and access information on your site. No thanks.
I can't view HTML on my pocket calculator. That doesn't mean that HTML isn't accessible.
It doesn't really help your position to throw out useless examples. A pocket calculator isn't a device which is useful for conveying information other than the results of simple methematical calculations. A better example would be a cell-phone or PDA, both of which can very usefully display a properly written web site (one that is also ADA compliant). Neither of these devices can usefully display a flash animation, or a website that is kludged to try to control graphic design.
They assume a given browsing paradigm.
So does HTML. They assume that you're using an HTML browser. What if I want to use a gopher browser to view their web pages?
That's just not worthy of a serious response.
I really don't much care about whether or not people or software can categorize and operate on my web page.
So you're content with people not being able to find your site or information on it, other than by manual references. You're comfortable with the fact that your potential customers will look for information pertaining to what you're providing and find all your customers but not you. I hope you're not in the web business, because if you are, you're clearly not serving your employer's interests very well.
When folks create a web page (like any other information), it is for a certain audience and they want it presented in the way they want it presented to that audience.
If you really believe in what you're saying, you shouldn't be using the web. The web is a terrible platform for what you want. What you describe is much better accomplished with platform specific software, or PDF files. What you would realize if you actually tried that approach, however, is that no one would take the trouble to view your information.
It really bugs me that there are folks who seem to want to "live in the old days" when "HTML was HTML and didn't have all these fancy-ass plugins". It's called progress folks.
Losing functionality is not progress. It is not trying to "live in the old days" to insist that a technology be used in such a way that actually takes advantage of its benefits, rather than forcing a large number of people to conform to your presumptions of how they should browse the web.
People are using the web in ways that were never concieved when HTML was created. It wasn't created with the disabled in mind. ALT tags were created for folks who didn't have a graphical terminal.
Do you have any information to back that up? I'm fairly sure your statement is patently false, as the W3C has been concerned with accessibility for quite a while.
hyper TEXT markup language was never meant to include graphics.
Not sure where that came from...the IMG tag has been there since the beginning.
Any decent web designer (and even the W3C zealots) will admit that HTML sucks. It's four thousand hacks layered on top of other hacks.
The hacks you're talking about are not HTML, they're the kludges that people use to try to make HTML do things that it was intended not to do.
What my question is, is why isn't everyone who is complaining about Flash working to create an accessible alternative? Why don't they create an alternative to HTML that makes it easy to create a well-designed (visually) site that is accesible to all users?
The accesible alternative is HTML. It allows you to present information in a platform independant manner. If what you want is ultimate control over presentation, you'll never get it, and you're missing the point. Different platforms, different users require different layouts. It's that simple. If you want interactive graphics, use your platform's graphics API.
Let's try to improve the system, instead of trying to force people to stick to the old, inflexible way of doing it. Ban Flash, ban HTML, do something better
The system has been improved, with the addition of CSS and XML, XSL, etc. What you suggest is akin to saying that you should be able to drive on the wrong side of the road, because you need to exercise your creative freedom. Some things were created the way they are for a reason. HTML happens to be one of them.
Even with globally included menu-navigation, footers, headers, and css, doing a look-and-feel makeover took 3 engineers 4 months to implement and another 2 to test with the cooperation of several product designers and QA staff.
I repeat. The only problem arises from those who incorrectly try to use HTML as a graphic design medium.
My company's application website has 1269 active jsps. I don't know if you have ever worked on a web-app, but it's not always easy to just use text to represent things.
I never said correct web design was easy, though it may seem to be so to those that don't fully understand it. But if you've been hired as a web designer/developer/whatever, you should be able to do it well. Yes, I have worked on a web-app, and helped to build software that many others use to work on web-apps.
I'm well aware of the different methods of representing information. I have all 3 of Edward Tufte's prominent books on the subject sitting on my bookshelf (I highly recommend them for any web developer). There are certainly ways of representing information efficiently and still making it accessible to software and people. If the only method of accessing your site is through an image, you're doing your customers a disservice, and you're missing the point of HTML. An image doesn't show up uniformly on every screen, it doesn't allow for individual preferences or needs (lack of eyesight, poor eyesight, colorblindness, etc.), it obscures your information from other software (e.g. search engines).
The simple fact is (no talking out of my ass here) that it would cost my pre-IPO company several hundred thousand dollars to implement ADA standards - while we're barely scraping by as it is...
Firstly, I was only addressing new sites with my original comment. Secondly, I mean no disrespect, but you have reaped your own reward for not building your site correctly in the first place. The expense of retooling now is no excuse for not having done things properly in the beginning.
Well, I disagree, but that's a question of terminology.
Much of the web is made up of flash animations, which I think are PERFECTLY FINE and can do a lot more than simple HTML.
They can do a lot if what you want to do is present animations. In terms of conveying information, they're pretty poor. They're not searchable. I can't view them on my system. They assume a given browsing paradigm. Much of the value in the web is in information that can be categorized and operated on meaningfully by software, which flash animations cannot. Also see my other comment.
Well, HTML and other web standards were crafted for a purpose, that being to present information in a way unspecific to a particular method of presentation. That's why it's defined in terms of logical tags, rather than presentation information. That's why it's so hard to do graphic design with HTML. It's supposed to be that way.
Sure, you can use that technology in whatever manner you please, but if you're building a site that isn't accessible to the blind, or isn't readable in any browser, your really missing the point.
There exist better technologies for doing graphic design. If you want graphic design, use PDF. People won't view it as much, because people are looking for information, not fancy graphics.
Finally, common sense from the bar. A new law is needed to define the rights of the disabled in cyberspace.
Why must we have a new law every time a new technology comes along? Wouldn't common sense be to use existing laws to govern new things, in the spirit of the old law? We have so many laws, governing the minutia of everyday life, that no person could possibly be expected to know or follow every one. What we need is a reduction and simplification of laws, not an expansion to explicitly govern every imaginable situation.
Like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act defined how Copyright functions in cyberspace, a Cyber-ADA needs to be passed by Congress to define how (and whether) the handicapped shall access cyberspace.
That doesn't make any sense. The DMCA took away rights people already had with regard to copyrighted materials. Do we really need to fight for peoples' rights again every time something new comes along?
Slashdot Mirror
All Windows productivity oxymoron jokes aside, how do you go from most of your users being on Solaris and Irix to thinking about going Windows only?
Erg...I just saw the second part of the article, after the ad. That was annoying. Maybe it's time to sign up for a subscription.
People pay universities for a piece of paper saying that they have fulfilled their requirements to be given a degree. Don't confuse that with the education you may or may not happen to get on the way to receiving said piece of paper. I'm able to learn much more efficiently and easily (and am more motivated to do so) on my own, but I need to bend over and do what a University tells me to do for four years in order to get that piece of paper so that people will hire me. Unfortunately in this market, people don't hire on merit, they want proof in the form of a degree (which I argue is no proof at all) that you can handle a job.
Anyway, as long as Universities have fancy pieces of paper with distinctive fonts (and latin, if you're lucky), their business will continue to do just fine.
Believe it or not, there are still people that haven't ported their software to linux. They need Solaris laptops (or worse yet, they lug around a workstation) to show off their wares to potential customers.
Personally, I think it's silly. Porting to linux is a great idea for a number of reasons, the ability to run on a plethora of cheap laptops not being the least.
Considering the US's asinine stance on crypto export, that's just good sense.
That said, there's no reason the frees/wan code couldn't go into the kernel in a stable form, but still be maintained separately overseas.
Which, of course, means that $1M will be split among the 325 employees, with the remaining $24M going to the executives for the brilliant idea of giving out bonuses to retain good employees.
Boy, I thought that contracts just happened to be confusing. I didn't know it was a formal requirement!
;)
The problem with this argument is that many people take this to mean that they should design explicitly for IE, and forget about the other platforms. Coding to standards is exactly the right way to go, and I don't think you should do anything to work around bugs in browsers, unless you can do so without compromising standard behavior. Coding specifically for IE, however, is ignoring most of the benefits that the web brought the world in the first place.
Well, I use a different operating system because it supports my work much better than Windows (and because Microsoft is evil and I don't want to pay for the wrongs they do). Should I buy another machine just so that I can run IE? This is obviously different from choice as related to disability or race, but it's also not as simple as, "I'm just being difficult and not using IE."
Nice. Way to work that gratuitous sniper reference into a completely unrelated discussion. So what's you're criterion for being evil? Killing people? Killing people without justification? I think there's room for different levels of evil here. Score one for the pedants.
Telling someone that they need this software installed in order to use their cable modem and then installing spyware is not exactly with their consent. You might want to read the Constitution sometime. Start with the fourth amendment.
Don't read the Aqua Guidelines, read the OS 8 Guidelines, or better yet, the first version of the book they published. Apple has really forsaken their ideals on this with Mac OS X. The principles they started out with were really well thought-out. Everything had a reason, usually derived from or metaphor for familiar concepts from the real world. I did a comparison a while ago of the Aqua HIG and some earlier HIG, I think the original, and it's ridiculous. They've just cut out huge chunks of some of the most insightful text.
I guess the principles just didn't fit in with the cute theme they wanted. Pfft! I've been an Apple fan for a long time, but I'm running linux on my TiBook. Mac OS X just pisses me off.
No kidding. "Critical Kerberos Flaw Revealed" is not exactly an appropriate headline for a fscking buffer overflow. Getting a bit sensational now, aren't we?
It's not a flaw in Kerberos, it's a bug in kadmind4.
Thanks, Progeny! This is what free software is about. Debian provides a great base system, which works incredibly well for those who use it. Progeny has other ideas for it, so they extend it to work better for their target audience.
It's hard to complain about that.
Oh, except, it's stifling innovation, and commercialization. I forgot. Damn.
Nor does it make sense to hack together an installer that only works on x86, creating more work down the road when the other platforms have to be supported.
You're speaking as if Debian were a company. It's not. It's a group of developers who work on what they need most or are most interested in. If you want a better installer for Debian, you're welcome to write one. People are working on one, but personally, I don't see a compelling need that would warrant taking developers away from another part of Debian.
Bringing more inexperienced users to the platform will just place more burden on the hardy few that answer peoples' questions, respond to bogus bug reports, etc. Those users are better off with a distribution targeted to them.
I'm sorry. I don't mean to personally attack you. I'm getting frustrated because you really don't understand what I'm saying, as is abundantly clear from your comments, and you don't seem to be attempting to take a step back and look at what I'm really trying to say, but rather to come up with points in return which sometimes don't hold up to an even cursory check of your logic (such as the calculator example), which only hinders a productive conversation.
The point is, as soon as you depart from the controlled world of platform-specific APIs (even then, systems are different and you have to account for that) you enter a world where presentation mechanisms vary greatly. Your browser window will be a different size from mine, your gamma will be different, we may not be able to display the same number of colors, we probably don't have the same fonts, I may not be able to display graphics at all. That doesn't mean you have to settle for the common denominator, but if your information is of any value and stands apart from the presentation mechanism you use - i.e. you're information is not the animation itself - you should make sure that your information is at least readable on everyone's platforms. To do otherwise is to defeat most of the advantages of using a web platform.
There is a place for flash and other such things on the web, but it isn't in critical navigation points, or as the sole display of information. You can do whatever you want with your own personal fluffy site, but if you're designing for a company who has customers, you're doing the company a disservice if you're excluding a portion of the potential client base. Assuming that everyone accessing your site is using the same browsing paradigm is hindering progress of the web, rather than furthering it. Why? Because with markup that's used properly, people can access your information in ways that you may have never dreamed of. Cell-phones, PDAs, and other devices could be very useful for accessing information on the web. That usefulness is diminished, however, by sites that assume a 1024x768 browser window with flash capability, javascript, and popup windows.
Again, this doesn't mean that you can't use those technologies or others. It does mean that they should be used purposefully, when it makes sense to do so, and in a way that doesn't obfuscate the information from browsers that can't handle them. This is entirely possible to accomplish, and doesn't require too much extra work. It does require that you be mindful of it from the beginning, and you understand the basic fact that the web is not accessed only by IE, or even mozilla/netscape/opera, but by many different browsing technologies.
My other basic premise is that to assume a given client, such as IE, is counterproductive, because you suffer from the drawbacks of trying to make HTML do what it was not intended to do (or was indended to inhibit), while not benefitting from the advantages given to you by a rich platform-specific API.
dammit...why do they put the fucking submit button under the no score+1 bonus box?
hold on.
I'm sorry. I don't mean to personally attack you. I'm getting frustrated because you really don't understand what I'm saying, as is abundantly obvious from your comments, and you
No, the principles upon which HTML was designed. If you don't understand the original design, you shouldn't be trying to extend it to new uses. Most people are just ignorant of the principles the web is based on, and use "innovation" or the like as an excuse for their ignorance.
No, it's not. Come on, try to use your brain a little. You can't watch TV on your radio. If you have a browser that understands HTML, properly written pages will render correctly.
Because it was designed specifically to discourage it.
Well, that's what CSS, XML, XSL, etc. are for. Trying to "get the silly image in the right place" is a perfect example of the ignorance/misunderstanding I'm talking about. You can't control that! You're not dealing with a printed page, you're dealing with something more nebulous.
That statement was referring to the users of your websites, who you suggest should view your pages exactly as you intended (ignoring the fact that this is not possible), rather than in the manner that is most useful to them.
I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. I'm not even suggesting that people shouldn't use any of those technologies. What I am suggesting is that people should understand the premise of HTML before they try to graft other technologies onto it and corrupt it to achieve things that HTML was designed, with good reason, to inhibit.
If you want platform-specificity you should use an API which actually takes advantage of your platform. What you suggest is to indulge in a fallacy of platform-specificity, when really you only enjoy the disadvantages of both approaches.
A printed page has a single manifestation. A web page can have any number of manifestations, depending on the client used to interpret the HTML. The same page, when properly designed, will show up differently on a PDA, cell-phone, lynx, mozilla, IE, braille reader, or text-to-speech engine - conveying the same information in many different ways.
I'm not sure why not, but anyway, most people simply don't understand the principles upon which HTML is based. You may say that you don't care that HTML is supposed to be semantic markup, and you don't care about the benefits described above. I'd say that's kind of silly considering that using HTML to specify format is pretty ineffective, and causes a lot of headaches, trying to make a technology do something it was designed to prevent.
That's right, HTML was designed specifically to prevent specification of layout, for the reasons mentioned above and others. Extending technology is fine and good, but those doing it should at least understand the technology they're extending.
Yeah, you're right. I read slashdot for the solid bars in between the text. Really, you've got to be kidding me.
Right, and this is exactly why HTML was designed not to be a graphic design medium. Your design for your browser window is annoying on my browser window that I keep at a different size. It's completely useless on my cellphone or PDA, and it's not readable by the blind.
You're making an assumption that the medium in question works like a printed page, which is not a valid assumption on the web. Further, navigation is vital, and it is hampered by an emphasis on fancy layout over data.
That means conveying the right information to the user's browser so that PEOPLE can access the information in a way that's useful to them.
I never suggested that PDF is a good way to present graphically designed web sites. I said that HTML was a poor language for graphic design, essentially that graphic design doesn't belong on the web, and that those who think it does just don't get it. Graphic design presumes a common viewing paradigm, with a relatively high set of standards to meet - it also denies the user the ability to control the presentation at a fundamental level.
Well, there's an idea. I should change the platform that works perfectly for me so that I can view a bunch of flash animations that detract from my ability to effectively navigate and access information on your site. No thanks.
It doesn't really help your position to throw out useless examples. A pocket calculator isn't a device which is useful for conveying information other than the results of simple methematical calculations. A better example would be a cell-phone or PDA, both of which can very usefully display a properly written web site (one that is also ADA compliant). Neither of these devices can usefully display a flash animation, or a website that is kludged to try to control graphic design.
That's just not worthy of a serious response.
So you're content with people not being able to find your site or information on it, other than by manual references. You're comfortable with the fact that your potential customers will look for information pertaining to what you're providing and find all your customers but not you. I hope you're not in the web business, because if you are, you're clearly not serving your employer's interests very well.
If you really believe in what you're saying, you shouldn't be using the web. The web is a terrible platform for what you want. What you describe is much better accomplished with platform specific software, or PDF files. What you would realize if you actually tried that approach, however, is that no one would take the trouble to view your information.
Losing functionality is not progress. It is not trying to "live in the old days" to insist that a technology be used in such a way that actually takes advantage of its benefits, rather than forcing a large number of people to conform to your presumptions of how they should browse the web.
Do you have any information to back that up? I'm fairly sure your statement is patently false, as the W3C has been concerned with accessibility for quite a while.
Not sure where that came from...the IMG tag has been there since the beginning.
The hacks you're talking about are not HTML, they're the kludges that people use to try to make HTML do things that it was intended not to do.
The accesible alternative is HTML. It allows you to present information in a platform independant manner. If what you want is ultimate control over presentation, you'll never get it, and you're missing the point. Different platforms, different users require different layouts. It's that simple. If you want interactive graphics, use your platform's graphics API.
The system has been improved, with the addition of CSS and XML, XSL, etc. What you suggest is akin to saying that you should be able to drive on the wrong side of the road, because you need to exercise your creative freedom. Some things were created the way they are for a reason. HTML happens to be one of them.
Ummm...yeah, that's what I was saying. We don't need new laws to govern what old ones already cover.
I repeat. The only problem arises from those who incorrectly try to use HTML as a graphic design medium.
I never said correct web design was easy, though it may seem to be so to those that don't fully understand it. But if you've been hired as a web designer/developer/whatever, you should be able to do it well. Yes, I have worked on a web-app, and helped to build software that many others use to work on web-apps.
I'm well aware of the different methods of representing information. I have all 3 of Edward Tufte's prominent books on the subject sitting on my bookshelf (I highly recommend them for any web developer). There are certainly ways of representing information efficiently and still making it accessible to software and people. If the only method of accessing your site is through an image, you're doing your customers a disservice, and you're missing the point of HTML. An image doesn't show up uniformly on every screen, it doesn't allow for individual preferences or needs (lack of eyesight, poor eyesight, colorblindness, etc.), it obscures your information from other software (e.g. search engines).
Firstly, I was only addressing new sites with my original comment. Secondly, I mean no disrespect, but you have reaped your own reward for not building your site correctly in the first place. The expense of retooling now is no excuse for not having done things properly in the beginning.
Well, I disagree, but that's a question of terminology.
They can do a lot if what you want to do is present animations. In terms of conveying information, they're pretty poor. They're not searchable. I can't view them on my system. They assume a given browsing paradigm. Much of the value in the web is in information that can be categorized and operated on meaningfully by software, which flash animations cannot. Also see my other comment.
Well, HTML and other web standards were crafted for a purpose, that being to present information in a way unspecific to a particular method of presentation. That's why it's defined in terms of logical tags, rather than presentation information. That's why it's so hard to do graphic design with HTML. It's supposed to be that way.
Sure, you can use that technology in whatever manner you please, but if you're building a site that isn't accessible to the blind, or isn't readable in any browser, your really missing the point.
There exist better technologies for doing graphic design. If you want graphic design, use PDF. People won't view it as much, because people are looking for information, not fancy graphics.
Why must we have a new law every time a new technology comes along? Wouldn't common sense be to use existing laws to govern new things, in the spirit of the old law? We have so many laws, governing the minutia of everyday life, that no person could possibly be expected to know or follow every one. What we need is a reduction and simplification of laws, not an expansion to explicitly govern every imaginable situation.
That doesn't make any sense. The DMCA took away rights people already had with regard to copyrighted materials. Do we really need to fight for peoples' rights again every time something new comes along?