Re: [xml-dev] Xlink Isn't Dead

[Ben Trafford <ben@prodigal.ca>]

At 09:22 AM 9/23/2006, Alexander Johannesen wrote:
>Work for me? Little; copy and paste. Work for them? Who knows. But why
>do you call this a "trick"? What's tricky about it? Not markup?
>Neither is CSS.

         When I say "trick," I mean, "a hack for something that 
should be based on markup + styling."

         See, you're speaking from the perspective of "Javascript is 
the norm, we all use it, it's fine." Ten years ago, the idea that 
we'd need scripting on -every- website was abhorrent. Now people accept it.

         As somebody who has written a few thousands lines of 
Javascript in my time, let me tell you, CSS support is generally more 
coherent across browsers than Javascript support.

         Also, if we keep things in the land of markup vs. the land 
of code, we have an easier time with things like accessibility for 
websites. CSS is a web accessibility enabler; Javascript is a 
disabler, by and large.

         Finally, yes, I confess that there is a part of me that's a 
bit of a purist about this, but there's also a pragmatic aspect.

         The purist says: code is for doing things -- markup is for 
modelling them. So why am I see menus using code for display 
purposes? Why aren't they modelled in markup + styling?

         The pragmatist says: People are struggling against the 
boundaries of the <a>-style link. They're pushing the boundaries with 
Javascript and other scripting hacks. Why don't we provide them with 
a robust, powerful linking toolkit in CSS, so they can explore some 
powerful hyperlinking?

>CSS1|2 doesn't create markup, so you might be looking to things like
>XSLT maybe or CSS3, which, in my personal opinion, is a poor way to
>fiddle with content! Is moving the transformation out of the markup
>and into the presentation layer a good thing at all, though?

         What's the difference between embedded markup and embedded 
images? That's what the <img> tag is. A link that automatically 
actuates upon pageload to place an image. Even with basic CSS, a 
transformation is happening at the presentation layer.

>But that's assuming there's more than a 80% need for that, which is
>what I'm asking; what is that assumption based on?

         Er. The numerous examples I've given in this thread? To 
which you've uniformly replied, "Why not just use Javascript?"

         I think I've answered why, above. People shouldn't need to 
learn how to program just to make a good link work. And requiring 
them to do so isn't encouraging the use of hyperlinks in a way that 
will increase the value of the Web, and make them inclined to create 
richer pages. As soon as someone has to do more than an <a> link, 
they groan, pull out the crappy Javascript they got from somebody 
else's site (that probably won't work properly in more than one or 
two browser varieties), and go to it.

         The need for an 80% is based on the fact that more than 80% 
of the sites I go to are using advanced linking features via some 
kind of scripting trick, or trying to emulate advanced linking 
features with CSS. And these aren't giant corporate portals; these 
are personal websites, small businesses, etc.

         Ten years ago, *ML people simply assumed linking support 
would get better over time, so they focused on other things. I don't 
think anyone actually expected to be using Javascript for -links- ten 
years down the line. It seems natural, and you seem to be taking a 
"If it it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach, but I say it only 
seems natural because of exposure.

         Imagine if someone told you that everytime you wanted to add 
visual accessibility options to a page, you needed to code them into 
Javascript. I mean, heck, the visually impaired are only 10% of the 
population. They're not on the right side of the 80/20. And then the 
government mandates accessible webpages, so everyone is hacking code 
for visual accessibility options into their webpages that work with 
dubious functionality depending on the site and browser.

         Would you find that acceptable?

>hide it in human forms, I'd say. But I fear I just don't understand
>what you're trying to say, so there you go ... :)

         Have I made myself clearer?

--->Ben