On 1/3/07, Tris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
http://w03-joshua.exalia.net/BrainPower/
On the above URL in FF, the display table has gaps.. but on IE.. it does not?
Can anyone explain why?
(I know I know, tables are bad.. though I've never really understood why...)
There isn't a thing wrong with table based layout if your goal is to
exchange documents. The table based web is great for that. It's a lot
faster and cheaper than using snail mail.
The audience will be somewhat more limited. There is the language
issue but there are translation programs; even though the quality
degrades rapidly as the material becomes more complex. And of course
what is now known as accessibility would further reduce the audience
-- visual problems, motor issues, etc.
Of course you could use screen readers to compensate for a lot of the
latte. Serialization is pretty reliable. But now and then you can get
odd results. The same kind of results you get when using wysiwyg
editors to compose. Way to often the editor simply corrects your code
because it knows better what it is you "really" wanted to code.
And that's the problem with tables. What you see isn't really what you
get. A lot of it is guess work by the browser. Unclosed tags force
guesses as to where the ending should be. Mostly browsers and screen
readers are good at this. If that's acceptable, and it is for many
very large corporations and a lot of government operations as well,
then keep using table based layouts.
If on the other hand, accessibility and portability are concerns, it's
time to look at the semantic web. Here data is the focus so increased
precision in the use of elements is required. Elements need beginning
and ends. Certain elements have particular functions assigned to them;
although some of the functions are so vaguely worded as to be pretty
much useless. Lists which do this and that among other uses are a bit
suspect for precision.
Similarly tables for layout have the same problem. At some point the
browser is guessing at what the author means; never a good idea. Plus
tables have a mathematical meaning by which the data in a cell is
given meaning by the axis of the table. How's a poor little browser to
know which meaning of table to apply? Is it layout or is it data? Only
the author knows for sure and hasn't been kind enough to share that
with the rest of us. Unfortunate but not fatal if you can see the page
you can usually get the gist. If not, oh well.
In some ways this is a bit of a red herring anyways. The semantic web
is about data -- unlocking the data hidden in applications. It does
this through the use of RDF and OWL. The of precise elements supports
this but doesn't define it. The w3c probably says it best (something
which might actually be considered a significant accomplishment in and
of itself):
"The Semantic Web is about two things. It is about common formats for
integration and combination of data drawn from diverse sources, where
on the original Web mainly concentrated on the interchange of
documents. It is also about language for recording how the data
relates to real world objects. That allows a person, or a machine, to
start off in one database, and then move through an unending set of
databases which are connected not by wires but by being about the same
thing."
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
Its the ontologies and the reliably represented information that make
the semantic web work. Its the precision rdf and owl offer which
almost incidentally solve accessibility - the data is there its just a
matter of finding the ontology which makes it understandable. That
single page is rich in resources and will help get you passed the
puffery now common in the endless rehashing of which is more semantic.
Skip that stuff, get the essence and then decide in which web you want
to work.
drew
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