>-----Original Message----- >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Patrick H. Lauke
>"In the real world where people are imperfect, you can't have >a standard with just a spec-you must have a super-strict >reference implementation, and everybody has to test against >the reference implementation." > >Reference implementation for content marked up in HTML is the >W3C validator...again, confused about CSS/DOM? > I think you are both getting confused here - a reference implementation of HTML is an actual HTML page. The validator is useful, but since it has no direct link to the spec, it is technically no better than any of the browsers. Compare with Tomcat, which is the reference implementation of the servlet engine spec, and allows you to test servlets. What is needed here is actually a browser specification, and consequently a browser reference implementation, against which it is possible to test HTML / CSS / DOM Clearly this is a massive task though, and requires a major effort, whether or not it is based on an existing browser. Compare also with XML, where the DTD is the specification of validity. The DTD can (on occasion) be read by software, and contains (almost) no ambiguity. (I'm not advocating XHTML here, by the way, as it stands right now - I think it was a missed, but certainly a failed, opportunity.) >"Enough ugly hacks. 8 billion existing web pages be damned." > >The fact that those 8 billion pages actually work fine in all >other browsers, who all seem to have managed to agree on an >interpretation of CSS/DOM by working together, ironing out >test cases, etc, doesn't matter? Are MS joining the party? Excuse me, but exactly how many of those 8 billion pages do you reckon work correctly at the moment? In _all_ browsers released this century? Including assistive technology? (I am sure I must be mis-understanding your point here - so could you please elaborate?) Regards, Mike ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
