Group FAQ & Bogosities in htmldog.com

Sub titulo Re: Why this html doesn't work?
scripsit Eric B. Bednarz:

It's considered best practise to read htmldog.com.

Is that in the FAQ?

Why do you ask? Because you are uncertain about the existence of a FAQ
for this group? According to faqs.org, for whatever it's worth, the
group has a FAQ at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/www/authoring-faq/ and the
FAQ is posted monthly, last modified in 2001, last posted in 2002; ref.:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgrou...ring.html.html
But the FAQ there refers to
http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/
which was last updated on April 26, 2007.

Generally, let's all sing "Oh where have all the FAQs gone", and let us
be thankful to people who contributed to the FAQ and especially to Darin
McGrew, who is apparently the last person keeping the FAQ somewhat
alive.

(I think it is generally considered good pratice to use a nntp client
for posting on Usenet, preferably one that does not mangle quoted code
snippets, however inadequate they may be, but that is an entirely
different problem)

Right. But I think it's not good practice to hide the most important
content of a message into a sig. You sig says:

"Note that the DOCTYPE tag is a bit of a rebel and demands to be written
in upper case and adorned with an exclamation mark. It also breaks the
rules in that it is the only tag that doesn't need closing."
<http://htmldog.com/guides/htmladvanced/declarations/>
[good stuff, no emphasis added —Ed.]

Technically, it exceeds the four-line limit. More importantly, it is
apparently ironic, but not apparently enough, since most HTML authors,
even including those who read the group, are more or less clueless about
doctype declarations. Sorry if this insults someone, but it's still
true. I am clueless about most things in world, and I don't mind if
people point that out. (Strangely enough, though, I'm usually accused
for being clueless in matters that I actually know pretty well. Strange
world, isn't it?)

Anyway, let's be explicit about the goofs in the quoted text:
1) The doctype declaration is not a tag at all (so the last sentence in
the quoted text is nonsense).
2) It is not case-sensitive, though some parts of it are.
3) The "funny" wordings aren't funny, and an explanation like that
wouldn't be a right place to be funny.

Otherwise, the page from which the quotation was taken tells what the
XHTML doctype declarations are and babbles about them. This is
counter-productive. It also says:

"Without specifying a doctype, your HTML just isn't valid HTML and most
browsers viewing them will switch to 'quirks mode', which means they
will think that you don't know what the hell you're doing and make up
their own mind on what to do with your code."

The text makes a point and then quickly loses it, describing "quirks
mode" in wrong terms and without citing any information on what "quirks
mode" actually means. It does not even warn that adding a doctype
declaration to an existing page may completely ruin the page (for
example, all content turns invisible), unless the page is fixed to use
proper HTML and proper CSS, which is rather nontrivial task.

I'm not saying that the author is "a short-sighted, one-eyed infant
gibbon with learning difficulties", as he describes a hypothetical web
author, but that's mainly due to my respect for people with learning
difficulties and for our simian relatives.

I had a positive impression of htmldog.com, from other people's comments
and from a quick look at the surface. This surely opened my eyes.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Sub titulo Re: Why this html doesn't work?
scripsit Eric B. Bednarz:

It's considered best practise to read htmldog.com.

< snip>

Otherwise, the page from which the quotation was taken tells what the
XHTML doctype declarations are and babbles about them. This is
counter-productive. It also says:

"Without specifying a doctype, your HTML just isn't valid HTML and most
browsers viewing them will switch to 'quirks mode', which means they
will think that you don't know what the hell you're doing and make up
their own mind on what to do with your code."

The text makes a point and then quickly loses it, describing "quirks
mode" in wrong terms and without citing any information on what "quirks
mode" actually means. It does not even warn that adding a doctype
declaration to an existing page may completely ruin the page (for
example, all content turns invisible), unless the page is fixed to use
proper HTML and proper CSS, which is rather nontrivial task.

I'm not saying that the author is "a short-sighted, one-eyed infant
gibbon with learning difficulties", as he describes a hypothetical web
author, but that's mainly due to my respect for people with learning
difficulties and for our simian relatives.

I had a positive impression of htmldog.com, from other people's comments
and from a quick look at the surface. This surely opened my eyes.

There is little out there either online or in print that gives newbies
the proper modern approach. It is disappointing section on their site.
However, other parts are best that I have seen online. Guess we cannot
have perfection. Would welcome the discovery of anything better...but
until that I would say that www.htmldog.com tutorials are best(*
although not perfect) to be found, and far better then most.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela (AT) cs (DOT) tut.fi> writes:

scripsit Eric B. Bednarz:

It's considered best practise to read htmldog.com.

Is that in the FAQ?

Why do you ask? Because you are uncertain about the existence of a FAQ
for this group?

It was more of a joke (these days you never know, though .

Right. But I think it's not good practice to hide the most important
content of a message into a sig.

I wouldn’t say it’s the most important content. Mind me, if it’s not
just plain old good but best practice, I’d really like to learn more
about the whereabouts of those who appear to consider that. You may
consider the question ironic too, if you must. Frankly, I find
htmldog a pretty lousy resource, but didn’t feel pressed to say that in
a straightforward manner.

Besides the excellent advice to exclusively declare language on the web
with the xml:lang MacGuffin, did you notice the PHP BS at the end of
that page, by the way?

?
if(stristr(\$_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT"],"application/xhtml+xml")){
header("Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8");
http://htmldog.com/guides/htmladvanced/declarations/

There’s so much wrong with it that you could build an entire Web 2.0
conference around it. As to the conclusion

Other than peace of mind that you know you're doing the right thing
and preparing yourself for the way to do things in the future, the
immediate benefit of using this method is that Mozilla will treat your
files as XML applications […]

I’m glad to say that this *is* in the FAQ.

<http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/faq.html#accept>

(Strangely enough, though, I'm usually
accused for being clueless in matters that I actually know pretty
well. Strange world, isn't it?)

Dunno. Actually, one of the reasons why I despise all the web standards
yada yada is that the most vocal proponents typically didn’t read any of
that boring stuff that they are evangelizing. It is pretty easy to get
into hopeless arguments with them, especially if you did your
homework. As I see it, that leads to either frustration or amusement. I
learned to prefer the latter; it was tough, but it worked out


--

|| hexadecimal EBB
o-o decimal 3771

--oOo--( )--oOo-- octal 7273
205 goodbye binary 111010111011

On 29 May, 11:27, "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorp... (AT) cs (DOT) tut.fi> wrote:

I am clueless about most things in world, and I don't mind if
people point that out. (Strangely enough, though, I'm usually accused
for being clueless in matters that I actually know pretty well.

So that makes you smarter than Plato?

Few dispute your cluefulness in the areas you discuss. If you're
accused of cluelessness, might I suggest that it's your
communication skills that are falling short, not your understanding.

Scripsit Andy Dingley:

might I suggest that it's your
communication skills that are falling short, not your understanding.

You might, but then you would express something about _your_ manners and
skills in communication. Like I would if I started babbling my guesses
about your personality.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

In article
<6bd907d2-3632-41f0-8ee8-eed86ec07a12 (AT) j22g2000hsf (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
Andy Dingley <dingbat (AT) codesmiths (DOT) com> wrote:

On 29 May, 11:27, "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorp... (AT) cs (DOT) tut.fi> wrote:

I am clueless about most things in world...


... I suggest that it's your
communication skills that are falling short, not your understanding.

The two things, in certain defined areas - namely understanding the
ordinary "other" human mind - are connected so tightly that one cannot
so easily separate them. So, in this respect, but not in any other, it
suggests a misplaced flattery.

--
dorayme

In article <YoX%j.9613$_03.3478 (AT) reader1 (DOT) news.saunalahti.fi>,
"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela (AT) cs (DOT) tut.fi> wrote:

Scripsit Andy Dingley:

might I suggest that it's your
communication skills that are falling short, not your understanding.

You might, but then you would express something about _your_ manners and
skills in communication. Like I would if I started babbling my guesses
about your personality.

So much for the good natured aspect of AD's remark. Not only what is it
not seen to be flattering - the only respect, paradoxically, in which it
was false - but it simply fell on deaf ears and so enhanced its
credibility.

--
dorayme

Scripsit Eric B. Bednarz:

Besides the excellent advice to exclusively declare language on the
web with the xml:lang MacGuffin, did you notice the PHP BS at the end
of that page, by the way?

No, I didn't read that carefully. I usually read text carefully only if
it has been written carefully, unless I am specifically paid for reading
it.

Thanks for the amusement.

But I'm afraid people's irony detectors might not be working, so they
might take your praise at face value. After all, they keep hearing that
XML and XHTML are solutions to everything and the way of the future we
should have taken years ago and they are semantic and free of errors and
extensible and everythingable.

Few people can tell a single _correct_ example of _actual_ benefits from
the use of language markup in HTML documents. One reason to that is that
the benefits are so limited. Another reason is that nobody ever
presented factually correct examples, still less demonstrated them.
People who can repeat the claim that language markup helps in speech
synthesis typically haven't ever actually _heard_ this is in action. So
no wonder they see nothing wrong with examples that use xml:lang (only).

Let us consider one actual benefit: if you open an HTML document in
Microsoft Word (or even copy and paste data from a web page to Word),
language markup gets transferred into Word's internal information about
language. This is useful for spelling and grammar checking (Word
automatically applies the rules of the languages used), for automatic
hyphenation, etc. Now guess (twice, if needed) whether Word recognizes
lang="..." or xml:lang="...". Or just try it.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/