Re: Kate Pages or How We Beat the Authors into the Will Of Gaffa

[Len Bullard <cbullard@HiWAAY.net>]

Great!  A flame war.  It's a good day to die. ;-)

> >
> > [Chris W.]
> >
> > > >These pages are only visible with frames browsers!
> > > >Use Netscape 2.0 or higher, Microsoft Explorer 3.0 or Oracle Power Browser 1.0
> >
> > I don't read this as gloating.  It is the fact, nothing more.
> 
>    It is not a fact. If the information *couldn't* be offered in proper
> HTML, it would be a fact. It easily could have been, but wasn't.

It is a fact that he did it the way he did.  Nothing more. Done that
way, he told the truth.
 
>    The people breaking HTML are the *least* knowledgable users,
> rather than the most.

The people who break HTML are using browser extensions.
This is how SGML applications are developed.   Extensions that
gain in popularity are added to the application.  It has been done
to every DTD I can name.  It has been done to every language.
 
>    The W3 that just got steamrolled by Netscape?

The IETF and W3C: the provenancing bodies.  If they got
steamrolled by a company, that is their problem. But
from the meetings in ISO I have attended, that is 
politics.  Real pros have to do it to do it right.
 
> The meta-content of
> the web is the web. I'd wager that there are more pages about writing
> web pages than almost any other topic. Why don't people read them,
> or read the authoring newsgroups?

Because they are having fun being creative instead?  I've read
some of those;  a good book on HTML is faster.
 
>    I lack your faith. I have tried every approach, and have been rebuffed
> by the "well it looks good on Netscape" brigade.

It Does.  Fact.  Why get upset?  It's their page.
 
> > How bad can a guy be who dedicates his ISP service to Kate Bush?
> 
>    He can be as thoughtlessly cruel as any other human being.

But he wasn't.  He made a page for kate.

>    Again, if it was an art page, this would be comprehensible. As
> it is an information resource, it should be held to reasonable technical
> standards.

Your classification; your standards.  I just see a guy
with the dedication to put up a page for kate.  cool.

you want to police the Web? go join the Evil One.  That's
his bag too.  have a blast.   just doesn't sound
like my idea of fun.
 
>    Furthermore...and I cannot stress this strongly enough, as it seems
> to have completely escaped your attention...there is *nothing* about
> adding *content* to the <NOFRAMES> section that would detract
> from his "art" one iota. Explain how it would.

I'm saying you are miserable sods for busting
his chops because he didn't.  It comes off like bullies
in a schoolyard.   Just ask him if he wants
to have a link from GaffaWeb.  If he says yes,
tell him that GaffaWeb asks that he make some
changes in his index.htm to help others of
GaffaWeb's members to have access to his page.
Then thank him for the effort he has made in
kate's behalf and welcome him to gaffaWeb.

That's easy.  If he doesn't; no link.  Not your worry
anymore.

>    It's my business and living. I repair pages for corporations
> that have been victimized by unskilled Netscape hacks.

Must be rewarding.  Do you teach them how to improve them
themselves?
  
>    Non-sequiter. I create web sites. I have been on the web for a while.
> Same as everyone else. I just happen to be more careful in my use of
> the web than most.

Not a non sequiter.  Extensions to the language are the domain
for the builders.  You can like it or lump it, it is a fact of 
life in engineering and in engineering on the web in particular.
We are content providers.  We use the tools.  I applaud your
care and your commitment to your craft, but beating up people
for making bad web pages is silly and beneath a good craftsman.

>     Boy, this part is from the ozone. You are working to ensure the future
> of the web by supporting the (to use a phrase borrowed from an idiot)
> "balkinization of the web"? 

Whatever does that mean?  The future of the web is being worked
out by engineers all over the planet.  Lot of opinions and a 
lot of incompatible code.  What you want is for everyone to
use one browser.  Ain't gonna happen.  Get used to it.

> The *current* structure of HTML works fine,
> thank you very much, and will continue to do so as companies (like
> Microsoft) discover that producing non-backwards compatible approachs
> ill-serves their customers.

Not allowing companies to evolve their tools?  Not sporting, I'd say.

>     Ok, you've waved your techno-creds, I'll wave mine. I've been a
> video engineer for 15 years. *None* of the "examples" you offered
> lacked backwards compatibility *especially* color TV.

Not what I said.  I said color TV technology sat there quite
a while until it was standardized and the broadcast of the
signal was allowed because of it.  It was backwardly
compatible from Bonanza on, yes sir.  That is not going
to be the way the web develops.  Not my rules.  I worked
in ISO on Hytime, and we worked pretty hard to avoid
what has happened with the Web.  It happened anyway
and as a devout HTMList, you helped make it happen, Chris.
Careful what you support if it does not meet your
requirements.  I support standards that can do the
job they need to, and use the tools that do the same.

So, send him your DTD and tell him if his page doesn't
parse by dawn, he's dogmeat.  We tried that in DoD;
guess what?  They just get pissed and go to PDF.

>    Thanks so very much for proving my point. I was planning to offer
> TV as a wonderful example of a backwards compatible standard.

It is, but that was not my point.  My point was the time from
the introduction of a technology to the adoption of the 
standard.  During that time, furious experimentation goes on.
That is how it works.  In this business, that experimentation
goes on online because that is how they are justifying the
free software.  A large and very productive feedback loop
is at work here with millions of people working with the software.
This is how the web advanced as fast as it has.  This is also
why people aren't paying the real software prices for
browsers which otherwise would be about $400 a pop.
 
 > > >Worse than the "seperate but equal" water fountians in the
> > >American south of the 1950's. Not even a "coloreds only". Nope, no water
> > >at all, unless you want to bleach your skin.
> >
> > Nice try but no soap, Chris.  I lived under American apartheid.
> > There is nothing you can tell me about that. I was there for
> > the riots, and there when the churches made the peace.  I
> > live in a black neighborhood today. I am there
> > everyday living in it.  My children are in the front yard
> > playing with their black friends.  They will never be beaten as I
> > was for that.  So, don't try this one.  No guilt here.
> 
>    Then you don't understand it. Use a speaking browser for a day.

That is a non sequitur.  The comparison of a person not
meeting your standards for a <noframe> tag and what was
endured here in the American South during the 1950s and 60s
is a bit over the mark, Chris.  

>     HTML 3.2 has a DTD. What possible use is an SGML instance without
> a DTD? Yet Netscape *still* hasn't offered one. 

You know, that's right.  Guess we have to beat them up too.

> I dread looking at one of your DTDs.

:-)

>     I'm in the middle of converting a large quantity of research
> material to SGML.

Good.  What DTD are you using?
 
>     I really don't understand where you're coming from. I'm on the
> side of open information. Making information availavle to as many
> as possible. You are defending the opposite. Prove me wrong, instead
> of waving your diploma at me, ok?

I'm not waving it.  I am also for open information, but I am also 
for the evolution of the tools that provide that.  I've
dedicated the last 16 years of my life working on really
challenging problems of open information systems.  I'm not
waving a diploma.  I've done the time. 

I have learned in that time that information fades, systems change, it's fun
work and it keeps getting better.  But if I had learned a language
and resisted the natural evolution of it, I would be one
of those people sitting in the back babysitting assembly legacy
until I got a better attitude.

>    The web is the de facto global information system.

Call the press!
 
>    As I said, I've tried every tactic. *You* politely write to him and
> tell him. He'll probably claim that reaching a mythical "75% of web
> users" is good enough (as if 25% of any population can be completely
> ignored.)

I did.  But I will write him again and tell him
that the Blue Meanies will visit his dreams if he
doesn't fix his page!  Lighten up and maybe they
will listen.  Lighten up, and at least if they
don't, you'll still feel good.

> > > People with less computer power than you are still people.
> >
> > So are people with more.  So are people with chevrolets and so
> > are people with bentleys.  So?  The Dreaming still sucks as
> > a commercial album; it is an artistic masterpiece.
> 
>    As much as I hate to say it ... *HUH*!?!

Really?  Ok.  If Kate was doing music the way you think
Burkhard should do his page, the Dreaming should really
piss you off.  She gave her label something they knew
they could not sell.  It did sell, but not as well
as hoped for, not as well as what she could have done
had she wished to.   She decided to experiment.
That is what Burkhard is doing.  Kate didn't
stop and think, "How can I do this in a way that
will be accessible to everyone?"  It's art. From
that view, he is free to do as he chooses, and it
is the view I take because it contributes to another
artist's freedom instead of working to save the heathens 
of HTML.

> This is the haves callously ignoring the needs of the have nots.

Pardon me.  This is a fellow who put up a Kate Bush
web page.  That ain't starving the natives, chief.
 
>    This is people with Pentiums and Power PCs marginalizing those with
> 286s and 68000s.

Do i hear a hymm starting... lord, lord, them
po' people without their pentiums... they can't see into every
page, every gif, every ick of ack on the vast nostrils of the
omnipresent, omniscient, and now.. friends and neighbors,
OMNIPOTENT, world wide web.  Chris, man, dude, it's just a computer.
 
>    This is snobbery, and I can think of no other word for it. Do you
> have a better one?

Yeah.  Common sense.  Get the best stuff I can and use it for
all its worth.  Compete and win and do good work and help others
do the same if I can.
 
>    It's Kate Bush Lyrics. Not scripture? IED might disagree.

He might.  I don't think a "whoWorshipsKateMore" fest is good
flame material.  WankerBait.
 
>    "Trying" includes understanding the strengths and weaknesses of
> the system. This person wasn't even trying.

It might be his very first page.  Who knows?  He just did
what he did.  
  
> > The web is just plumbing.
> 
> It's so much more. You may have turned your back on the web in favor
> of kludges like VRML (a mediocre solution in search of an undefined
> problem), but I haven't.

I guess I'll have to accept my exile from the chosen.

Hey, come to Seattle for the conference.  I'll
introduce you to the SGML community.  They love these kinds
of arguments, so you should fit right in.

As for VRML, it's monster fun.  A very good multimedia hub language
and it now has behaviors.  Fantastic artistic challenge.

len