> Benjamin Franz <snowhare@netimages.com> writes, in a long diatribe
> about HTML-WG:
>
> > If every major browser company is implementing a feature *not* in the
> > current standard, say FONT|TEXT|BGCOLOR|VLINK|ALINK|LINK|WIDTH="XX%",
> > and the *majority* of users are *using* them - the WG is play King Canute
> > if it refuses to try and actively attempt to integrate them into the
> > standard. Passive 'we'll do it when Company N give us a formal
> > description' for month after month is not going to cut it. At *LEAST*
> > four browsers have implemented these extensions now.
>
> Someone (not Company N or M or whatever) needs to write a complete
> specification before it can become a standard. I don't care who it is.
> But it has to be something someone can read and make sense of and
> implement.
<pointed-remark>You mean something like the unofficial Mozilla DTD
maintained at HALSoft?</pointed-remark>
The fact is that reasonable DTDs *have* been presented for much of the
stuff everyone is screaming about. The WG has chosen not to take them up,
prefering instead to stick with 'We defined it this way. Never mind no
popular browser has implemented it our way.'
> Frankly, if everyone composing gripes about the Working Group process
> would take the same amount of time to actually participate in the
> process, we'd get a lot more done. Actually, we'd get more done if
> you'd just stop flaming, even if you don't participate in other ways.
If you thought my post was a flame, you are truely living a sheltered
life. It wasn't in any way, shape, or form a flame. I am completely
serious in prosing the wg be dissolved to allow the focus to
shift to SGML - where it belongs.
> Constructive activities for HTML-WG members include reviewing
> proposals, making constructive criticisms (novel, explicit, suggest
> alternatives, changes to the draft or at least point out ambiguities
> or inconsistencies) or writing new Internet drafts.
Wonderful! Would you care to constructively comment on the proposal I
recently made regarding a content model change for <PRE>? It is very
odd how I received not even *one* response from the wg either
for *or* against my proposal to allow tables to be embedded in
pre-formatted areas for the sake of backwards compatibility with HTML 2.0.
Not even to say I needed to present a DTD fragment.
I assume this silence means everyone assents to it?
> Counter-productive activities include discuss anything other than the
> technical content of proposed RFCs. In particular complaining about
> someone's marketing strategy, motives, product plans, some software's
> behavior, bugs, or release schedule, or complaining about the
> effectiveness of the IETF, this working group, this process are all
> non-constructive.
If you think it was simply a rant about the WG effectiveness, you
didn't read it very closely. I am 100% serious. The WG has ceased
(actually some time ago) to be effective either for documenting current
practice - which now clearly incorporates presentation into HTML itself
and is unparsable by SGML - or for extending the standard (which requires
the ability to achieve closure).
>
> So is this message, for which I apologize.
>
> > I move to dis-establish the HTML working group.
>
> Anyone may accomplish this (at least from your point of view) by
> sending mail to "listserv@oclc.org" with body "unsubscribe html-wg".
No - that simply removes it from my sight. But like a festering tooth,
its effects would continue, unseen but not harmless. The WG would
continue to adsorb energy and time that is badly needed for the formation
of a true SGML standard rather than the endless HTML wars.
Current practice HTML as it stands right now *cannot* be integrated
into SGML. The reasons for this can (and have been) be argued for years.
But it is the reality. There are now literally MILLIONS of web pages
that it is impossible to write a working DTD for.
And it isn't going to get any better. Bad HTML and browsers that accept
stuff that could never be passed through an SGML parser feed off of each
other in a positive feedback loop. Wide use of bad HTML means browsers have
to be exceptionally accepting of clearly broken code to achieve market
share, browsers that accept a wide range of bad code encourage more even
more bad HTML to be written as people use their browsers to "validate"
their code.
I would estimate that less than 10% of web pages can pass
*any* validator DTD. I *KNOW* how to write compliant code and I still have
to fix things nearly everytime I write a page because of typos or simple
mistakes and forgetfulness. Without a good validator, they would simply
go up like that.
So I repeat: It is time to officially disband the HTML WG.
-- Benjamin Franz