Re: [boost] Re: A Formal Review Request

From: Lois Goldthwaite (loisg_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-10-11 11:59:46

David Abrahams wrote:

> I was about to download lynx, but couldn't figure out what anyone would want
> it for (other than this particular job). Can you motivate this tool for me?

Well, if you happen to be working through a telnet window to Unix over a
slow link, and you just have to look at something in html ...

On a more serious note, many visually-impaired people use lynx. Their
screen readers are happier with plain text than with fancy GUI stuff. 

Plus all the other good arguments that have been put forward that you
can't be sure something is OK just because IE or/and Netscape renders
what you intended. 

> 
> > To me it seems only fitting that a group committed to writing
> > standard-conforming C++ would produce standard-conforming HTML.
> 
> I totally agree with the intention. But it certainly seems like it could be
> a serious additional barrier to entry at boost, an idea which I don't like
> at all. I hear that most of the automated tools generate garbage, by an
> HTML-expert's standards, but I'm not sure I do any better by hand. I sure
> wish someone else would weigh in on this; I don't know enough to speak with
> authority.
> 

I think we ought to keep one eye to the future and the capabilities of
XML. XML is pickier than browsers about the well-formedness of the
tagged content. If we produce up-to-spec html, we could easily produce
printed copy by changing the style sheet. But if we turn out a large
body of crappy-html legacy docs, someone will have to clean it up
someday.

Peering-myopically-into-a-crystal-ball-ly yours,

Lois