Re: [PLUG] DSL saga webpage (the nub)

[Fred K Ollinger <follinge@sas.upenn.edu>]

*** Long winded, self-indulgent rant ahead ***

> Really, find a nice standard page, one that meets W3C standards and I
> guarantee I can find at least one common browser that won't reproduce it
 							      ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> properly.  Maybe I'm cynical, but I've seen it happen all too often,
^^^^^^^^^^

No, offense to anyone, but the above statement shows a minor lack of
comprehension on what the designers of the web intended and explains why
some of us cry when we see what's happening it.

The web page maker's job is determine the general layout of the page, but
the exact implementation of that layout should be determined by the
browser and in part by the user. pdf locks the layout in, which is good
for a document as Gabriel all ready agreed, but not good for a quick read
as there is a potentially greater audience here. I would like to read
doug's saga in lynx.

This leads to the other question as to what "text misconstrued" means.
Text is text is text. You all are reading this email in different fonts in
different readers. Some are on pdas, other on gui, others on command line.
Can't we all get along? Yes w/ html. pdf is more for things you are going
to print out and bind.

Again to quote someone smarter than me, "the right tool for the job." And
again, you want to cater to the greatest possible audience. If you are
serving out your page on a web page, then there's a great chance that
_any_ broswser ever designed can render the text in such a way so that it
won't be misconstrued if it's written in straight english. In fact, I
might add, that plain text is the best way for someone to express
themselves b/c there's no distractions, just the words.

I'm a wanna be writer and I don't fool myself. I can do fancy things w/
word, but the publisher will change it anyway. They don't care about my
layout, they want to read just my words.

We really feel the same about Doug. We realize that his writing is
probably so good that he doesn't need to hide behind fancy formatting to
make his statement. He's telling a story only. Some of us would like to
change the font w/o firing up windows and acrobat reader. I do b/c my eyes
are bad. Some fonts irritate me. How does pdf do this better?

There are quick programs that can automatically convert b/c a great number
or formats to html.

In fact, it's better to start w/ a markup then move to pdf at the end, not
the other way around as it leads to better structure and a more readable
paper.

This email echange can be a metaphor for when the appearance gets in the
way of the story. Some of us quit trying to read the story all ready b/c
of this.

In fact, this is kind of funny b/c I know of no other market outside the
web where the producer makes nutty requirements on their consumers. No,
you can't go through our drive-thu cause you are driving the wrong car. :)

> when you add in all the folks still using Netscape 3.XX or lynx
> (incidentally, one can actually use Lynx to download a pdf file such as
> the one on Doug's page, slightly more work but even Lynx can deal with
> PDF that way) because they like it or newer browsers lack some feature
> said user like, you're asking for trouble whether the page is properly
> done or not.

*** lame analogy, probably wrong-headed ***
I thought the customer was always right. I mean hollywood's not going to
start releasing movies in random languages and telling the audience that
if they didn't go out an learn Tamil last week, then they need to study up
before they can see the movie. They tend to cater to the lowest common
demominator, which is good in this case cause it's really easy to do. All
my web pages show up great everywhere. (That's a lie, they actually look
terrible everywhere, but they work everywhere and do what they say they
should w/o yelling at you for not compiling X). :)

*** end silly rant ***

Cheers,

Fred



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