I agree with both of you, to a point - as your points demonstrate my perspective more than the battle cry for "standards".
I'm saying that it's about freedom. Freedom to create with the latest version of Flash, or communicate via Telnet. (A majority of people I know and work with have never even heard of Telnet.) Where you have web designers or email communicators that are demonstrating that they have no sensitivity at all to their audience, that's obviously a problem they have that needs to be fixed. But just because there are people that can't do more than Telnet doesn't mean that someone else shouldn't be allowed to use HTML. If they happen to need to talk to each other, obviously the have to go with the most common denominator. But there's no reason at all that the rest of the world who are not communicating with those with such limitations shouldn't be able to go about their business using the latest technologies and functionalities that are available to them. Two folks want to "Flash" back and forth to each other, so be it. To say otherwise is about "rules", not standards. As for people who can't work with higher tech, well, I think it's way cool that they are in the pool at all. Great. But just because they can't swim yet doesn't mean we need to keep the entire pool drained down to 2', let them stay in the shallow end and enjoy the water as much as they can and let the rest of us who can swim have the rest of the pool deep enough to jump in from the high-dive. Making the pool available for everyone is about freedom, not standards, and certainly not rules of limitation. Just my 2 lira. :-) ht ////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ On 11/21/03, Midi wrote: >Michael, > >Thank you for writing this. > >I cannot agree with you more. This was very well written. When I read >this, I remembered a website that was dependent on flash meant to deliver >education in a developing country where many students would be accessing >with older computers for limited times. Better that they could download >information they need than watch fancy pictures that were very slow to >load for them. > >However, this applies widely even in the developed world. I work as a >volunteer in a sports organization to support the participation of my >children. One of the issues that comes up constantly is that parents want >simple information access, not fancy pictures when they try to get >information about the competitions. I know that my own kids are pictured >out (and were a long time before the internet was so ubiquitous) and now >want hard copy versions of the Economist, for example, instead of working >through what it takes to read the articles online. > >Midi > >Michael caused electrons to hula in cyberspace with: > >>A lot of things are leaving them behind. Even websites for some of the >>very agencies they depend upon are barely accessible by them thanks to >>the demise of Gopher, Telnet bulletin board systems, and more. The ONE >>thing they have always and should be able to count on for communication >>is email. Email is pure communication, and it should be pure text with as >>little formatting as possible, so that anyone anywhere can talk to anyone >>else anywhere and get the vital information they need. Scientists in >>various parts of the world should not have to be cut off from their >>counterparts in the wonderful U.S., U.K. or wherever, because of the >>whims of Bill Gates and our apparent desire to want everything pretty. > >
