>> Personally, I don't think it is a matter of people not caring about the
>> integrity of their HTML.
Amanda> I have to disagree, based on the spectrum of discussions
Amanda> I've had with HTML authors. The prevailing attitude is
Amanda> that HTML is valid if it produces the output an author
Amanda> desires on the browser(s) the author uses.
I will agree with Amanda. I am the lone engineer on the marketing
team that puts out Silicon Graphics' web server. I work with a group
of people that don't care what the spec says, as long as the page
looks good on Netscape. The usual reply to my complaints about their
HTML are either "It looks fine on my system", and "n% of the net use
Netscape, so what's the problem".
I have given them tools to check their HTML, and they don't use them,
because as far as they are concerned it doesn't matter.
Amanda> What will be the key, I think, is if all of the major
Amanda> browsers (most notably Netscape) simply stop displaying
Amanda> invalid HTML "just fine."
The 2.0 alphas that I have seen happily does nasty things to some of
our pages, so at least they are doing something towards moving people
to their version of HTML. Unfortunately, this is only part of the
solution.
Without an organization to protect/promote the HTML standard, I can
very quickly see HTML as becoming unrecognizable from one vendor to
another. You will use Netscape to view Netscape pages, SpyGlass to
view SpyGlass pages, and so on. This will destroy the web faster than
any sluggish standards process.
-- Dan Rich <drich@sgi.com> | http://reality.sgi.com/employees/drich/ Technical Lead/Silicon Surf | "Danger, you haven't seen the last of me!" Silicon Graphics Inc. | "No, but the first of you turns my stomach!" (415) 390-5779 | -- The Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger