Hi John I don't want to weigh into this argument of tables right or wrong - I think all the angles are being covered pretty well at the moment. But I read your post & a couple of things jumped out at me.
On the whole it's a good read & I agree with a lot of what you are saying bit this section: > But unfortunately an article like yours is not read by them in the > spirit in which you intended, it is read as a vindication of their > position. "See, Andy Budd agrees with me". > > So rather than seeing something like "at times, it may be necessary to > use a non standards based approach to achieve an outcome within certain > constraints, and that is ok" they see "all those standards zealots > really don't know about the real world so everything they say can > safely be ignored." > > Then Dave Shea, and Nick Bradbury and others weigh in nominally > agreeing, making it all like its all so reasonable and realistic and > essentially you reinforce the context of the discussion about web > standards. ..kind of scared me a little. Could what you are saying be distilled into "Don't raise controversial & complicated issues in public because they might be misinterpreted by fools and used contrary to their original meaning"? That's how I'm reading it. Andy, Dave & Nick's comments will most likely be misunderstood or misrepresented by some, but I imagine they are going to help others. Regardless of whether people agree or disagree its about getting people to think about the issue and that has to be a good thing. However even this is beside the point. Andy has expressed an opinion, anyone and everyone is more than welcome to debate the ideas he's raised (as I know you have), but I thinks its rude to criticise the fact that he expressed the opinion in the first place. Argue the points but, please don't stifle the conversation itself. I'm not trying to pick a fight - I mean the above in the most respectful way. Cheers Mark ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help *****************************************************
