Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 08:24:10 -0500 (EST) From: John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu> To: Wolfram Schneider <wosch@apfel.de> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG, meganm@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: new look Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970618073554.7181A-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu> In-Reply-To: <p1i2060b2ij.fsf@campa.panke.de>
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On 18 Jun 1997, Wolfram Schneider wrote: > Well, it was more than a layout change. We changed the viewpoint, from > a Unix hacker view who know what he are looking for to a FreeBSD > beginners or someone who never used FreeBSD (Windows/Linux > users). Yes, it is a big change in viewpoint. But my point was that it came about only through changes in presentation of content that was already there. Likewise, two pieces of software with identical functionality can differ dramatically in usability merely by changes in interface. > IMHO a good change, but what does the > > <FONT FACE="ARIAL,HELVETICA"> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > mean in index.html? A hideous corruption of HTML brought to you by our friends at Microsoft. The addition of hacks like this have seriously retarded the devopment of stylsheets which directly address web developers complaints about lack of control in a way that is FAR more flexible than invented tags or attributes could provide. Meanwhile, MS and NS have convinced the masses that hack jobs like <font face="..."> are the solution. The web used to be about sharing of information irrespective of computer systems used in the sharing. Doing that demands data standards first, then applications that work with that standard. Much of the software industry operates in the reverse--standardize on an application and then mash your data to fit. SGML's power rests in encouraging markup that can be easily mapped into different applications. To do this, it is essential that there be a clean separation of data markup and application specific information, in this case formatting instructions. Stylsheets maintain that clean separation. Tags such as <FONT> and <CENTER>, along with blatant misuse of other tags to achive visual effect, corrupts that distinction and thus corrupts the data itself, rendering it considerably less useful. Most of the FreeBSD web pages are machine generated from "real" SGML sources, so the use of such hideous HTML markup practices does not reperesent a corruption of the original data. Those pages that are hand-crafted HTML do not represent a substantial data investment, and without style sheets, there really is no alternative to making the pages look interesting visually. We do, however, take care to make sure that markup for one specific application (eg Netscape) does not adversly affect other applications. Oh, and the "ARIAL,HELVETICA" is a suggestion to the browser that the enclosed text should be renederd using either the Arial typeface or the Helvetica typeface. -john
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