What is there to explain? The GPL has always excluded people. It used to only exclude people who want to distribute their code under a license of their choosing. Now it excludes more people that RMS disagrees with. This is the slippery slope where he gradually excludes more and more people, trying to exert more and more control over software developers and users.
So to summarize: "blah blah blah, I will keep repeating the same irrelivant nonsense and ignoring the easily verified facts". Ok thanks, I heard you the first time. Trying to drag things even more off-topic with console vs PC portability isn't going to change the simple truth. Designing your engine to be portable from the start adds a trivial amount of development time to the project. Wether you like that or not, its reality, and no amount of insane and irrelivant blathering about hobbyist engines will change that.
"Freedom for users" was already redefined to mean "freedom for users, except for ones we don't like". You were just ok with who they didn't like before (people using non-GPL licenses). They are simply extending the scope of who they don't like.
"First: Development of NeL took YEARS by experienced, full-time paid developers. THIS is the difference. Your typical run-of-the-mill opensource engine didn't experience that amount of development."
Again, who cares? Why do you think this is about open source vs closed source engines? Yes, it took a while to make NeL. It took a while to make doom3 and unreal engines too. It even took a while to make the halflife 2 engine, didn't it? It takes years wether you do it portable or not. Ignoring this simple fact will not make it go away.
"Also, since you STILL do not understand, ask yourself why Crytek, Valve, Raven, Bungie, EA, and countless others do not write portable games. Guess what? BECAUSE IT IS EASIER."
Because its CHEAPER. They don't want to add support costs for a very small userbase. This is what I said in my first post to this thread. Try reading it.
"Lots of people make portable engines? Lots of people make SIMPLE portable engines."
Yes, simple engines like the doom3 and unreal engines.
"I already brought the real-world facts that prove that you are wrong and writing portable engines isnt easy. Your choice to simply ignore them says a lot."
No, you have stated your opinion. I choose to believe the opinions of more experienced people than you. Not to be a dick, but who's opinion do you think I would give more weight, you or carmack? Nobody is saying that making a portable engine vs a non-portable one is exactly the same, just that when you consider the years of work involved, portability is a tiny piece that doesn't really have much impact on the total timeline.
"NeL is not your typical opensource engine. Its a commercial product with an opensource option, just like Radon Labs Nebula Device."
And? What does this have to do with anything? Its a portable engine that anyone can view the code to see that you are wrong. I don't care how it was made, that has nothing to do with anything. The fact is lots of people make portable engines, and its not hard (compared to writing a comparable non-portable engine).
"Wrong. Its quite simple: "full featured" has to include a good toolchain, or else its not full featured."
Well, that's nonsense actually. But none the less it has nothing to do with the discussion. Making a toolchain is the same wether you have a portable engine or not.
"And of course you believe that it was incredibly easy to make it portable, right?"
The effort required to create that engine as it is, vs the effort required to make it non-portable is very similar. But of course your opinion is correct, and mine is wrong right? Because I have only written tetris clones and you wrote doom3 obviously.
"Microsoft bought a company, zombified their product, and piled a new userland layer on top of it."
Nice story, but if you talk to the people who started softway, you will get a much different story. The interix team worked for microsoft after the company was bought. This was not particularly shocking since they had always had a relationship with MS since they started. But I am sure you know more than the people who started the company and made the product right?
"But we won't let Microsoft engage in revisionist history."
No, that would be you making up crazy bullshit. Google for "interix history" and "softway history", the people who actually were involved have said what happened. I am more inclined to believe them than you, especially since you clearly have some serious emotional issues involving MS and interix.
"You were clearly right in your original point."
And yet you insist on aruging anyways.
"Except you keep ranting on about how much BETTER the new kludge is than the 'ancient' junk."
Really? I guess you could quote me then huh? I didn't say anything like that, your emotional baggage has gotten the better of you I'm afraid.
"Are you insecure about something in your personal life to lash out like this?"
Odd that you would say that, as I wonder what sort of insecurity leads someone to shut their brain off and go into an insane tirade from the phrase "That was before the SFU 3 series when they started using openbsd. It now uses pdksh just like openbsd does.". Not even a mention of interix or softway, but you go apeshit anyhow. You know going to therapy is nothing to be ashamed of, it could really help you deal with your issues.
Good fucking christ dude, you are repeating the same, completely irrelivant nonsense over and over. Nobody gives a fuck about your ancient copies of interix, we are talking about SFU.
"Since purchasing Softway Systems, Microsoft has screwed with and crippled the software product formerly known as Interix."
No, they have included it as part of their SFU package, along with the openbsd userland. Again, which part of this is difficult for you to grasp? You can confirm this from interix.com and microsoft.com, do so instead of repeating your crazy nonsense.
And which part of "SFU uses the openbsd userland, including pdksh" is in any way wrong? Its easily verified fact, and you repeating things that have nothing at all to do with the subject won't change that. And how on earth would that make me a microsoft astroturfer? This is the single most bizzare lack of logic I have seen on slashdot, and I discussed the world being 10,000 years old with a christian fundamentalist whackjob. So congrats on the severe brain damage anyhow.
Microsoft doesn't have a crippled version of SFU, they have the only version of it. Interix is a POSIX subsystem for Windows, made by Interop Systems (previously Interix). SFU includes interix to run unix apps, and the openbsd userland to be the unix environment. What part of this is so difficult for you to grasp? And why is your response to being proved wrong to make up even more nonsense?
Yes, Interix produced SFU. And starting with 3.0 it uses an OpenBSD userland, like I said already. Download it and check for yourself with a "cd/bin && strings * | grep OpenBSD". I guess just talking out of your ass is easier though huh?
"Yes, and NO ONE of them is an AAA-production option."
Ah yes, that's why people are releasing commercial games written with them right? Would you care to backup your bullshit by telling me what is wrong with the engine behind saga of ryzom (NEL)?
What kind of crazy non-sequiter is this? I didn't say anything about toolchains, or even that anyone should use an open source engine. I simply said they are there so anyone who wants to see you are wrong can. Just look at the code, portable, full featured 3d engines used in commercial games. Its not a big deal. And even some closed source engines are portable.
"Hahahaha. How funny. Once you get to the point of writing a GOOD engine you will see that you are wrong."
Uh, you are telling me the doom3 engine isn't good? Or did you forget that its portable too?
"Now imagine what that code would look like if instead of just compensating for minor differences in the OpenGL pathway, you were running on a whole different CPU. By the way, some of the important parts of a 3D engine are still hand-coded in assembly. Will x86 assembly work on PPC?"
Why imagine, you can already do it. It works fine, try it. And of course if you wrote some assembly you will have to rewrite that, but I would like to see an example of "import parts of a 3D engine" that are still hand coded in assembly. You do realize there are full featured, portable, open source 3d engines out there right? So anyone can go ahead and see that making a portable 3D engine isn't any harder than making a non-portable 3D engine.
"Its already easy to make your game run on windows, mac and linux, you just have to choose to do it. Most companies don't because the extra support costs. None of this changes just because macs have different CPUs."
Ok, yes there's more than just direct3d. But its the biggest pain. And you are just reinforcing exactly what I said, it has nothing to do with "taking advantage of PPC". Taking a couple more libs onto the list doesn't make me "flat out wrong".
Uh, what do different video card capabilities have to do with anything? You do realize that you still use the same video cards in a mac right? Why do you think opengl code is somehow magical and won't work on PPC without rewriting it for no reason?
The issue is dumbasses writing games in direct3d instead of opengl. You don't have to rewrite your game to take advantage of PPC, that's why we have compilers. Its already easy to make your game run on windows, mac and linux, you just have to choose to do it. Most companies don't because the extra support costs. None of this changes just because macs have different CPUs.
"6) Sticking invisible text into pages is one of the oldest known blackhat SEO tricks, and hasn't worked with any major search engines for about 5 years now. Indeed, most major search engines use exactly this trick (amongst a few others) to mark sites as spam, and reduce their rankings or simply delist them. I presume this was supposed to be a joke. It's really hard to tell whether you know that or not, but I'll be charitable and assume you do."
I give up. If you want to insist that you know everything that's fine. Have fun. The fact that you make a statement this completely and totally stupid, which is easily PROVABLY wrong shows that you are not willing to even consider the possibility that there are other ways to do things. Invisible text works just fine, in this case I was referring to text that would be covered by the image, and thus would be treated identically to the text you propose using. But of course you only advocate CSS, you don't actually have any clue how to use it. There are dozens of ways to make search engines see text that most browsers don't display, and most of them still work great.
First of all, blindly jumping on the "lets all use xhtml even though we don't know why" bandwagon doesn't improve your site, or its ranking. Just repeating the "search engines prefer valid xhtml" lie doesn't magically make it so.
Second, its easy to stuff your site with keywords using any tag, why do you think the alt attribute of img tags is so special?
"Have you done no parsing at all? And Googlebots, unlike early spiders, pretty much ignore meta tags."
Yes, I have. You should try it some time. And read what I said, googlebot looks for particular meta tags that it cares about. It seems like you are trying to convince me that you are brain damaged.
"Text+CSS is better because text browsers and screen readers get the same content rather than being marginalized and dependent on charity code. "
Ok, you have succeeded in convincing me. There is no clearer way for me to say THEY GET THE EXACT SAME RESULTS. If you cannot grasp this, and are too stupid to try it and see for yourself, then there is no point talking to you.
"Valid code and text+CSS offers graceful degradation as well a being future proof."
Just like images.
"I have yet to see this well implemented except at demonstration sites. I would very much appreciate some examples of live sites that do a good job with the technology. In any case, it is well beyond the capabilities of our friends like SCR Online (who could handle CSS and even validity if he gave it a try). "
Google for GD.
"I provide you evidence that Google isn't indexing alt text and you don't get my point? That particular slogan is on every page, and I bet SCR Online has been using it for years. Okay, try proving me wrong. Please provide an example of alt content influencing a Google search to the positive! We already know that plain text influences a Google search, and you are asserting that alt text gets equal (or at least similar) weight."
I am not asserting that at all. I am asserting that its a waste of time, gets you nothing, and makes your site uglier. And if alt tags don't help for google, then stick invisible text in there, who cares?
"My assertion on the utility of syntax to a search engine follows from deductive reasoning that I believe I have credibly represented here. I am find it curious that you are so resistant to my logic."
You have presented nothing logical or credible. I suggest you get some experience with writing spiders and then come back and read this to see how dumb you sound.
"All browsers and all search engines have to render content in a deterministic way. It is willful ignorance to pretend that what you get from your eyes is the same as what a machine "sees". To do that, you have pay close attention to the source code. Yes, spiders can only make up for so many mistakes, they have to emulate all version of all browsers on all platforms. "
No, it doesn't have to do any of that, that's the whole point. Spiders don't give a shit what your markup is like. They index content, and only look for particular tags that have meaning to them (certain meta tags, a tags, etc). Again, I suggest you actually impliment a spider and you will realize quickly how far off your misconceptions are.
"Alt attributes are okay for text only browser and screen reader, but text+CSS is still better for both"
No, its not better for either, ITS 100% COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY IDENTICAL. How hard is this to grasp? Just try it and quit repeating this nonsense.
"Using over sized graphics so they can stretch (for printing or on a large monitor) is still taking a gamble. "
So don't do that, generate images of the dimensions you need as you need them. What part of dynamic did you not understand?
"And anti-aliased fonts are available on any system that supports vector graphics."
No they aren't. The only windows version to support anti-aliased fonts is XP.
"I surf with a hand held several times a week. Yes, images are okay, but text is so much better."
I don't even know what you are trying to say in the last paragraph, except that you don't understand how search engines work. Just having a phrase in an alt tag (or in any other tag like you are suggesting) doesn't make the search engine care. It needs to occur repeatedly, and have other "related" terms on the same site. This is how they see if you are actually a site about whatever, or just putting the term in your site to try to get traffic.
"It has been a while since I was scared off application/xhtml+xml as a complete hack"
Its not a hack at all, it is the correct and recommended mime type for xhtml. If you serve xhtml as text/html, then it is parsed as tag soup.
"It comes down to mathematics."
No, it comes down to your "gut feeling" or "superstitious nonsense". If it came down to math then you would be able to mathematically prove the advantage of wasting time redoing your site in validating xhtml for no reason at all.
"The problem is that the spiders and search engines have more in common with minority browsers you deliberately neglected than they do with IE."
Or so you blindly assume. Do you think the google guys are retarded? They know alot of the web is broken html only renderable by IE. They design googlebot to deal with it, because their goal is to index as much info as possible. And of course, making your site validate (regardless of wether its as html or xhtml) doesn't magically give you any guarentees. You still have to test it in lots of browsers and still have no assurance that it will be parsed or displayed as you intended.
"Text+CSS scales, prints well, downloads faster, and is more cross platform compatible than graphical text. Graphic text is of fixed size and color (which is especially hard for people with low vision) looks like crap when printed (and if your site is worth anything, pages will be printed) is slow (but hey, who cares about people with modems) and works well only on computers (those rich folks with hand held browsers never buy anything). Plus you get the added benefit that plain text is treated with more credibility by the search engines than alt text. Granted, it would be quite the trick to mock up the Coca Cola logo in text+CSS."
Wow, what's life like back there in 1998? Images are more widely supported than CSS actually, and with alt tags will degrade to text only browsers and screen readers EXACTLY the same as text+css would. Graphics do not have to be fixed size at all, that's a choice you make in using static images, you can use dynamic images if you want to. And they also scale just fine for people with vision problems (or just running 1600x1200 like me). Images also print just fine, I don't know what you are talking about with that one.
Images don't need to be slow, especially simple text images. Simple text menu images aren't very big at all. And they are cached browser side and only requested the first time one page loads. And on what planet do images not work on hand helds? I'll admit I am not big into the shitty mobile device world, but I haven't seen any shitty enough to not display images. And of course, your assumption that search engines treat text as more important than alt tags is based on nothing. I could claim that search engines will rank you higher if you have alt tags on menu images instead of a text menu, but then I would be making up bullshit too.
There is no document/xhtml+xml mime type. See the RFC, it is application/xhtml+xml, like I said. And if you want to have some bizzare and unfounded religious belief that search engines punish invalid markup that's up to you, but you have to have some kind of evidence if you want people to take you seriously. I can say search engines punish you for using blink tags, but it doesn't make it true (sadly).
"That is wishful thinking, but incorrect. And we are not talking plain text. Styled text may be a little more work, but there is no reason for it to be ugly!"
Get real, not everyone is using an OS with antialised fonts, and in fact in many cases they may not even have the font you are trying to use anyways. Replacing images with text makes the site look worse for many people, and provides no benefit. With an image you know exactly how it will look for everyone who can view images, with text, you have no idea how it will look.
"I would argue that the primary advantage of what xml gets you, by definition, is well-formedness. There is no such formal concept with html, so (in the absence of that) the choice is code soup or validity."
No it doesn't. You can have invalid xhtml just like you can have invalid html. And unless you send it with an application/xhtml+xml header (which IE doesn't support), then it will be parsed using a "tag soup" parser anyways, not an xml parser. Further, html can be well formed too. Html is an SGML language, and if correct will be well formed SGML. This is exactly like xhtml being well formed XML. So as I said, there is no benefit here at all. Google does not punish you for having invalid markup, there's tons of sites that are listed #1 for common search terms that are not xhtml, nor are they even valid html.
"Plain text is much more straightforward than alt text, so it counts for much more with Google (hence the advice to avoid graphical text and use CSS instead)."
No it isn't, alt text is plain text. Adding alt text is part of making your site search engine (and visually impaired) friendly. There is no need at all to remove your images and replace them with plain text. It will have the same effect for search engines as adding alt tags, but it will make the site uglier for users.
"The only course of action is to be forthright, and trust (or just hope) that Google deserves the reputation they have earned"
No, that will leave you where the OP is now, with a crappy, low ranked site. Content is king. He needs to make sure common search terms actually appear in the content of his site, and make sure that his site is frequently updated. This gets you ranked higher in search engines, not blindly jumping on the "I'm too fucking stupid to research xhtml, so I am going to pretend it is the saviour of mankind and will cure cancer" bandwagon, like the guy giving shitty advice.
No, it doesn't deserve more credit than I give it. Its completely wrong, like I said. You can't pretend his advice is useful just because the site sucks. His advice will do nothing to improve the site. And it doesn't anger me to the point of vulgarity, I am always vulgar.
Slashdot Mirror
What is there to explain? The GPL has always excluded people. It used to only exclude people who want to distribute their code under a license of their choosing. Now it excludes more people that RMS disagrees with. This is the slippery slope where he gradually excludes more and more people, trying to exert more and more control over software developers and users.
So to summarize: "blah blah blah, I will keep repeating the same irrelivant nonsense and ignoring the easily verified facts". Ok thanks, I heard you the first time. Trying to drag things even more off-topic with console vs PC portability isn't going to change the simple truth. Designing your engine to be portable from the start adds a trivial amount of development time to the project. Wether you like that or not, its reality, and no amount of insane and irrelivant blathering about hobbyist engines will change that.
"Freedom for users" was already redefined to mean "freedom for users, except for ones we don't like". You were just ok with who they didn't like before (people using non-GPL licenses). They are simply extending the scope of who they don't like.
"First: Development of NeL took YEARS by experienced, full-time paid developers. THIS is the difference. Your typical run-of-the-mill opensource engine didn't experience that amount of development."
Again, who cares? Why do you think this is about open source vs closed source engines? Yes, it took a while to make NeL. It took a while to make doom3 and unreal engines too. It even took a while to make the halflife 2 engine, didn't it? It takes years wether you do it portable or not. Ignoring this simple fact will not make it go away.
"Also, since you STILL do not understand, ask yourself why Crytek, Valve, Raven, Bungie, EA, and countless others do not write portable games. Guess what? BECAUSE IT IS EASIER."
Because its CHEAPER. They don't want to add support costs for a very small userbase. This is what I said in my first post to this thread. Try reading it.
"Lots of people make portable engines? Lots of people make SIMPLE portable engines."
Yes, simple engines like the doom3 and unreal engines.
"I already brought the real-world facts that prove that you are wrong and writing portable engines isnt easy. Your choice to simply ignore them says a lot."
No, you have stated your opinion. I choose to believe the opinions of more experienced people than you. Not to be a dick, but who's opinion do you think I would give more weight, you or carmack? Nobody is saying that making a portable engine vs a non-portable one is exactly the same, just that when you consider the years of work involved, portability is a tiny piece that doesn't really have much impact on the total timeline.
"NeL is not your typical opensource engine. Its a commercial product with an opensource option, just like Radon Labs Nebula Device."
And? What does this have to do with anything? Its a portable engine that anyone can view the code to see that you are wrong. I don't care how it was made, that has nothing to do with anything. The fact is lots of people make portable engines, and its not hard (compared to writing a comparable non-portable engine).
"Wrong. Its quite simple: "full featured" has to include a good toolchain, or else its not full featured."
Well, that's nonsense actually. But none the less it has nothing to do with the discussion. Making a toolchain is the same wether you have a portable engine or not.
"And of course you believe that it was incredibly easy to make it portable, right?"
The effort required to create that engine as it is, vs the effort required to make it non-portable is very similar. But of course your opinion is correct, and mine is wrong right? Because I have only written tetris clones and you wrote doom3 obviously.
"Microsoft bought a company, zombified their product, and piled a new userland layer on top of it."
Nice story, but if you talk to the people who started softway, you will get a much different story. The interix team worked for microsoft after the company was bought. This was not particularly shocking since they had always had a relationship with MS since they started. But I am sure you know more than the people who started the company and made the product right?
"But we won't let Microsoft engage in revisionist history."
No, that would be you making up crazy bullshit. Google for "interix history" and "softway history", the people who actually were involved have said what happened. I am more inclined to believe them than you, especially since you clearly have some serious emotional issues involving MS and interix.
"You were clearly right in your original point."
And yet you insist on aruging anyways.
"Except you keep ranting on about how much BETTER the new kludge is than the 'ancient' junk."
Really? I guess you could quote me then huh? I didn't say anything like that, your emotional baggage has gotten the better of you I'm afraid.
"Are you insecure about something in your personal life to lash out like this?"
Odd that you would say that, as I wonder what sort of insecurity leads someone to shut their brain off and go into an insane tirade from the phrase "That was before the SFU 3 series when they started using openbsd. It now uses pdksh just like openbsd does.". Not even a mention of interix or softway, but you go apeshit anyhow. You know going to therapy is nothing to be ashamed of, it could really help you deal with your issues.
Good fucking christ dude, you are repeating the same, completely irrelivant nonsense over and over. Nobody gives a fuck about your ancient copies of interix, we are talking about SFU.
"Since purchasing Softway Systems, Microsoft has screwed with and crippled the software product formerly known as Interix."
No, they have included it as part of their SFU package, along with the openbsd userland. Again, which part of this is difficult for you to grasp? You can confirm this from interix.com and microsoft.com, do so instead of repeating your crazy nonsense.
And which part of "SFU uses the openbsd userland, including pdksh" is in any way wrong? Its easily verified fact, and you repeating things that have nothing at all to do with the subject won't change that. And how on earth would that make me a microsoft astroturfer? This is the single most bizzare lack of logic I have seen on slashdot, and I discussed the world being 10,000 years old with a christian fundamentalist whackjob. So congrats on the severe brain damage anyhow.
Microsoft doesn't have a crippled version of SFU, they have the only version of it. Interix is a POSIX subsystem for Windows, made by Interop Systems (previously Interix). SFU includes interix to run unix apps, and the openbsd userland to be the unix environment. What part of this is so difficult for you to grasp? And why is your response to being proved wrong to make up even more nonsense?
Yes, Interix produced SFU. And starting with 3.0 it uses an OpenBSD userland, like I said already. Download it and check for yourself with a "cd /bin && strings * | grep OpenBSD". I guess just talking out of your ass is easier though huh?
That was before the SFU 3 series when they started using openbsd. It now uses pdksh just like openbsd does.
SFU is a port of openbsd's userland to windows. As such it uses ksh, not bash.
"Yes, and NO ONE of them is an AAA-production option."
Ah yes, that's why people are releasing commercial games written with them right? Would you care to backup your bullshit by telling me what is wrong with the engine behind saga of ryzom (NEL)?
"Most opensource 3dengines lack decent toolchains."
What kind of crazy non-sequiter is this? I didn't say anything about toolchains, or even that anyone should use an open source engine. I simply said they are there so anyone who wants to see you are wrong can. Just look at the code, portable, full featured 3d engines used in commercial games. Its not a big deal. And even some closed source engines are portable.
"Hahahaha. How funny. Once you get to the point of writing a GOOD engine you will see that you are wrong."
Uh, you are telling me the doom3 engine isn't good? Or did you forget that its portable too?
"Now imagine what that code would look like if instead of just compensating for minor differences in the OpenGL pathway, you were running on a whole different CPU. By the way, some of the important parts of a 3D engine are still hand-coded in assembly. Will x86 assembly work on PPC?"
Why imagine, you can already do it. It works fine, try it. And of course if you wrote some assembly you will have to rewrite that, but I would like to see an example of "import parts of a 3D engine" that are still hand coded in assembly. You do realize there are full featured, portable, open source 3d engines out there right? So anyone can go ahead and see that making a portable 3D engine isn't any harder than making a non-portable 3D engine.
You said what I said:
"Its already easy to make your game run on windows, mac and linux, you just have to choose to do it. Most companies don't because the extra support costs. None of this changes just because macs have different CPUs."
Ok, yes there's more than just direct3d. But its the biggest pain. And you are just reinforcing exactly what I said, it has nothing to do with "taking advantage of PPC". Taking a couple more libs onto the list doesn't make me "flat out wrong".
Uh, what do different video card capabilities have to do with anything? You do realize that you still use the same video cards in a mac right? Why do you think opengl code is somehow magical and won't work on PPC without rewriting it for no reason?
The issue is dumbasses writing games in direct3d instead of opengl. You don't have to rewrite your game to take advantage of PPC, that's why we have compilers. Its already easy to make your game run on windows, mac and linux, you just have to choose to do it. Most companies don't because the extra support costs. None of this changes just because macs have different CPUs.
"6) Sticking invisible text into pages is one of the oldest known blackhat SEO tricks, and hasn't worked with any major search engines for about 5 years now. Indeed, most major search engines use exactly this trick (amongst a few others) to mark sites as spam, and reduce their rankings or simply delist them. I presume this was supposed to be a joke. It's really hard to tell whether you know that or not, but I'll be charitable and assume you do."
I give up. If you want to insist that you know everything that's fine. Have fun. The fact that you make a statement this completely and totally stupid, which is easily PROVABLY wrong shows that you are not willing to even consider the possibility that there are other ways to do things. Invisible text works just fine, in this case I was referring to text that would be covered by the image, and thus would be treated identically to the text you propose using. But of course you only advocate CSS, you don't actually have any clue how to use it. There are dozens of ways to make search engines see text that most browsers don't display, and most of them still work great.
First of all, blindly jumping on the "lets all use xhtml even though we don't know why" bandwagon doesn't improve your site, or its ranking. Just repeating the "search engines prefer valid xhtml" lie doesn't magically make it so.
Second, its easy to stuff your site with keywords using any tag, why do you think the alt attribute of img tags is so special?
"Have you done no parsing at all? And Googlebots, unlike early spiders, pretty much ignore meta tags."
Yes, I have. You should try it some time. And read what I said, googlebot looks for particular meta tags that it cares about. It seems like you are trying to convince me that you are brain damaged.
"Text+CSS is better because text browsers and screen readers get the same content rather than being marginalized and dependent on charity code. "
Ok, you have succeeded in convincing me. There is no clearer way for me to say THEY GET THE EXACT SAME RESULTS. If you cannot grasp this, and are too stupid to try it and see for yourself, then there is no point talking to you.
"Valid code and text+CSS offers graceful degradation as well a being future proof."
Just like images.
"I have yet to see this well implemented except at demonstration sites. I would very much appreciate some examples of live sites that do a good job with the technology. In any case, it is well beyond the capabilities of our friends like SCR Online (who could handle CSS and even validity if he gave it a try). "
Google for GD.
"I provide you evidence that Google isn't indexing alt text and you don't get my point? That particular slogan is on every page, and I bet SCR Online has been using it for years. Okay, try proving me wrong. Please provide an example of alt content influencing a Google search to the positive! We already know that plain text influences a Google search, and you are asserting that alt text gets equal (or at least similar) weight."
I am not asserting that at all. I am asserting that its a waste of time, gets you nothing, and makes your site uglier. And if alt tags don't help for google, then stick invisible text in there, who cares?
"My assertion on the utility of syntax to a search engine follows from deductive reasoning that I believe I have credibly represented here. I am find it curious that you are so resistant to my logic."
You have presented nothing logical or credible. I suggest you get some experience with writing spiders and then come back and read this to see how dumb you sound.
"All browsers and all search engines have to render content in a deterministic way. It is willful ignorance to pretend that what you get from your eyes is the same as what a machine "sees". To do that, you have pay close attention to the source code. Yes, spiders can only make up for so many mistakes, they have to emulate all version of all browsers on all platforms. "
No, it doesn't have to do any of that, that's the whole point. Spiders don't give a shit what your markup is like. They index content, and only look for particular tags that have meaning to them (certain meta tags, a tags, etc). Again, I suggest you actually impliment a spider and you will realize quickly how far off your misconceptions are.
"Alt attributes are okay for text only browser and screen reader, but text+CSS is still better for both"
No, its not better for either, ITS 100% COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY IDENTICAL. How hard is this to grasp? Just try it and quit repeating this nonsense.
"Using over sized graphics so they can stretch (for printing or on a large monitor) is still taking a gamble. "
So don't do that, generate images of the dimensions you need as you need them. What part of dynamic did you not understand?
"And anti-aliased fonts are available on any system that supports vector graphics."
No they aren't. The only windows version to support anti-aliased fonts is XP.
"I surf with a hand held several times a week. Yes, images are okay, but text is so much better."
I don't even know what you are trying to say in the last paragraph, except that you don't understand how search engines work. Just having a phrase in an alt tag (or in any other tag like you are suggesting) doesn't make the search engine care. It needs to occur repeatedly, and have other "related" terms on the same site. This is how they see if you are actually a site about whatever, or just putting the term in your site to try to get traffic.
"It has been a while since I was scared off application/xhtml+xml as a complete hack"
Its not a hack at all, it is the correct and recommended mime type for xhtml. If you serve xhtml as text/html, then it is parsed as tag soup.
"It comes down to mathematics."
No, it comes down to your "gut feeling" or "superstitious nonsense". If it came down to math then you would be able to mathematically prove the advantage of wasting time redoing your site in validating xhtml for no reason at all.
"The problem is that the spiders and search engines have more in common with minority browsers you deliberately neglected than they do with IE."
Or so you blindly assume. Do you think the google guys are retarded? They know alot of the web is broken html only renderable by IE. They design googlebot to deal with it, because their goal is to index as much info as possible. And of course, making your site validate (regardless of wether its as html or xhtml) doesn't magically give you any guarentees. You still have to test it in lots of browsers and still have no assurance that it will be parsed or displayed as you intended.
"Text+CSS scales, prints well, downloads faster, and is more cross platform compatible than graphical text. Graphic text is of fixed size and color (which is especially hard for people with low vision) looks like crap when printed (and if your site is worth anything, pages will be printed) is slow (but hey, who cares about people with modems) and works well only on computers (those rich folks with hand held browsers never buy anything). Plus you get the added benefit that plain text is treated with more credibility by the search engines than alt text. Granted, it would be quite the trick to mock up the Coca Cola logo in text+CSS."
Wow, what's life like back there in 1998? Images are more widely supported than CSS actually, and with alt tags will degrade to text only browsers and screen readers EXACTLY the same as text+css would. Graphics do not have to be fixed size at all, that's a choice you make in using static images, you can use dynamic images if you want to. And they also scale just fine for people with vision problems (or just running 1600x1200 like me). Images also print just fine, I don't know what you are talking about with that one.
Images don't need to be slow, especially simple text images. Simple text menu images aren't very big at all. And they are cached browser side and only requested the first time one page loads. And on what planet do images not work on hand helds? I'll admit I am not big into the shitty mobile device world, but I haven't seen any shitty enough to not display images. And of course, your assumption that search engines treat text as more important than alt tags is based on nothing. I could claim that search engines will rank you higher if you have alt tags on menu images instead of a text menu, but then I would be making up bullshit too.
There is no document/xhtml+xml mime type. See the RFC, it is application/xhtml+xml, like I said. And if you want to have some bizzare and unfounded religious belief that search engines punish invalid markup that's up to you, but you have to have some kind of evidence if you want people to take you seriously. I can say search engines punish you for using blink tags, but it doesn't make it true (sadly).
"That is wishful thinking, but incorrect. And we are not talking plain text. Styled text may be a little more work, but there is no reason for it to be ugly!"
Get real, not everyone is using an OS with antialised fonts, and in fact in many cases they may not even have the font you are trying to use anyways. Replacing images with text makes the site look worse for many people, and provides no benefit. With an image you know exactly how it will look for everyone who can view images, with text, you have no idea how it will look.
"I would argue that the primary advantage of what xml gets you, by definition, is well-formedness. There is no such formal concept with html, so (in the absence of that) the choice is code soup or validity."
No it doesn't. You can have invalid xhtml just like you can have invalid html. And unless you send it with an application/xhtml+xml header (which IE doesn't support), then it will be parsed using a "tag soup" parser anyways, not an xml parser. Further, html can be well formed too. Html is an SGML language, and if correct will be well formed SGML. This is exactly like xhtml being well formed XML. So as I said, there is no benefit here at all. Google does not punish you for having invalid markup, there's tons of sites that are listed #1 for common search terms that are not xhtml, nor are they even valid html.
"Plain text is much more straightforward than alt text, so it counts for much more with Google (hence the advice to avoid graphical text and use CSS instead)."
No it isn't, alt text is plain text. Adding alt text is part of making your site search engine (and visually impaired) friendly. There is no need at all to remove your images and replace them with plain text. It will have the same effect for search engines as adding alt tags, but it will make the site uglier for users.
"The only course of action is to be forthright, and trust (or just hope) that Google deserves the reputation they have earned"
No, that will leave you where the OP is now, with a crappy, low ranked site. Content is king. He needs to make sure common search terms actually appear in the content of his site, and make sure that his site is frequently updated. This gets you ranked higher in search engines, not blindly jumping on the "I'm too fucking stupid to research xhtml, so I am going to pretend it is the saviour of mankind and will cure cancer" bandwagon, like the guy giving shitty advice.
No, it doesn't deserve more credit than I give it. Its completely wrong, like I said. You can't pretend his advice is useful just because the site sucks. His advice will do nothing to improve the site. And it doesn't anger me to the point of vulgarity, I am always vulgar.