

Re: Flagging & in URL in HTML 4.01 transitional type.

From: Mike Heins <mheins@redhat.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 23:57:34 -0400 (EDT)
To: Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
Cc: www-validator@w3.org
Message-ID: <20010608235615.A15683@bill.heins.net>
Quoting Kynn Bartlett (kynn@idyllmtn.com):
> At 12:11 PM -0400 2001/6/08, Mike Heins wrote:
> >In my opintion that validation is pedantic, and should certainly not
> >be flagged in the HTML 4.01 transitional type.\
> Well, duh.  All validation -is- pedantic.  That's the point.  If you're
> just going to say "I know the spec says this, and I don't care, and even
> if you have good reasons for it, it's still stupid" then you're not asking
> for real validation.  Not in the technical sense.

Perhaps that is true. Yet why do we have an HTML 4.01 transitional 
spec, and an HTML 4.01 strict spec? And why does a C compiler have
a -pedantic switch? And why does a program like lint(1) have differing

Maybe I am arguing that the HTML 4.01 transitional spec is wrong
and should be changed. All I wanted to do was find out solid reasons
why the validation flagged that, and I haven't found that out. No real
reason for this has been shown other than the case of &copy=, and this
is defended because the semicolon is optional in an entity, as defined by
the spec. Why the heck would the semicolon be optional? What good reason
could there be for that? No one seems to know or care. It is the spec,
after all, and it must be validated. If that is the totality of the
mission statement, congratulations to the authors.

I think I just ended up on the wrong list.

> If you don't care what the specification says or why it says it, why
> do you care if your code can be validated against it?  It's all about
> the pedantry, man.
> Validation does not mean "the browsers will or won't accept it".  If
> that is what you think it means, then you need to do some research into
> what validation is REALLY about.

If you look at the dictionary definition of pedant, it has a word in
the definition -- "needlessly".  And pedants are eventually ignored by
most people, as I feel HTML 4 compliance is being ignored. I think
have found out why.

This list appears to be silently moderated and without charter, not
allowing me to post or subscribe after my first post. I find that rude
in the extreme, particularly so in a quasi-public forum.

Thanks for your response, and please bid the folks there a kind adieu,
as I cannot.

Red Hat, Inc., 3005 Nichols Rd., Hamilton, OH  45013
phone +1.513.523.7621      <mheins@redhat.com>

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Received on Monday, 11 June 2001 03:30:13 GMT
