Re: Web Page Appearance

[Shmuel Ben-Artzi <sba -at- NETMEDIA -dot- NET -dot- IL>]

Kris,

At the risk of walking the tightrope of going off-topic on this one (please
put the bat down, Eric!), I want to carry this one step further. What you
say has merit, Kris, but I feel that it sidesteps one of the major issues
involved.

Most standards organizations work at a pace that makes lumbering IBM look
like a quarter horse out of the gate. It has been accepted in the computer
industry for some time now that a generation is defined as around two to
two-and-a-half years. Not so the Internet, though, were that time span is
probably no more than six months.

So do we, the end users, satisfy ourselves with the crraaaaawwwwwllllllling
pace of the standards groups. Or do we embrace the efforts of the more
entrepreneurial of the developers to expand the standards beyond the
currently accepted limits and to, in effect, establish new de fatco
standards. The question is not whether the developers make a few extra
bucks by so doing (Capitalism 101), but whether the best interests of the
users are concurrently being served.

If the current tiny, halting beginnings of a trend toward cross-platform/OS
and open standards becomes more and more a reality, then this question will
become increasingly easier to answer. And if not, then we consumers will
have to make some choices. Life's tough.

Shalom,
Shmuel

sba -at- netmedia -dot- net -dot- il

> Not only does it defeat the purpose of the tag, but it defeats the
purpose
> of standards. Why do we have an HTML standard if it's going to be
ignored?
>
> There are many reasons that the current HTML standard is ignored. Here's
a
> couple of examples: (1) It points to a tag set that doesn't satisfy the
> needs of everyone using the web, including those who write search
engines.
> (2) Some companies want to corner the web market so they have written
> browsers and tools that support not only the current HTML standard but so
> many proposed versions beyond that. This gives them greater flexibility
and
> a perceived competitive edge.

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