Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

>>Your problem here is that you're naively assuming that you're the
>>biggest smarty ever and that everyone should design the web to YOUR
>>specifications. If I were you, I would abandon this line of reasoning
>>immediately.
> 
> Using cheap personal attacks will not exactly help your point :-(

It's not a cheap personal attack, it's an observation. You certainly 
SEEM to think that the web should be designed to your specification, and 
that's a naive attitude to have. It's also a rather arrogant one.

What I posted in my reply to Ken was a cheap personal attack. If I were 
to call you a kook - which I'm getting very close to doing - that would 
be a cheap personal attack.

> Nonsense!  The page gets bloated like hell if you use CSS or any layout for
> that matter!

The main CSS file for my site, which is used by the vast majority of the 
pages on it, is about 3200 bytes. It should logically only be downloaded 
by a browser which supports and displays CSS, and then only once as it 
would be cached thereafter. Each HTML file contains no more than a 
couple hundred characters devoted to CSS (for the link tag, classes and 
IDs), and often as few as 50 or so. That's as many as it takes just to 
add a proper DOCTYPE to the top of the file.

I don't feel that this constitutes "bloating like hell".

If you expect anyone to take you seriously, you must make more 
reasonable statements.

> Who wanted them?  The designers or the users?

Both.

The designers wanted specific control over layout and style, and they 
got it. The users wanted pretty pages that load quickly, which the 
designers were better able to give to them with CSS.

> I am saying that layout should not be specified at all!

No you're not.

When you put words on a page, they go in a certain order. That is 
layout. The sentences and paragraphs also go in a certain order. That is 
layout. Lines must break somewhere (or not). That is layout. There must 
be space between paragraphs (or not); that is layout.

If you have a table - even if it's filled with ordinary tabular data - 
it's still layout. If you put an image on a web page, where does it go? 
In the horizontal center of the page? On the side? At the bottom, after 
all the text? Maybe at the top? Should it be rendered inline or block? 
Should text flow around it? If so, how much room should there be between 
the image and the text? This is all layout.

Even the typographic controls that CSS gives designers, which you put 
down as an attempt to make the web work more like print media, exist IN 
TYPOGRAPHY for a reason. There are centuries of development in print 
with regards to fonts, font weight, spacing, leading, column width, and 
so forth.. things which apply to ALL text, everywhere.. things which do 
not fail to apply to text on the web simply because it's on the web.

What you're doing is making an artificial distinction between what kinds 
of layout are okay and which are not. Unfortunately, you're not doing a 
good job of defining the dividing line, let alone justifying its 
existence. I'll say it again: if you want every web page to look the way 
you want, turn off your browser's handling of designer-specified 
styling, or use a browser that supports user stylesheets and create a 
stylesheet that suits you. There's really no reason to throw away 
something that millions of people want just because you can't be 
bothered to turn it off, AND IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

-Xplo

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Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
> I said now a few hundred times that I do 
> not want *************any************** layout.

  Ok, I made a version of one of the pages with absolutely no layout:

http://www.students.tut.fi/~warp/povQandT/languageQandT_nolayout.html

  Now I see what you mean. It's a lot cleaner this way! A lot nicer to read.
  Perhaps I should make all the pages like that.

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

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Warp wrote:
> Ok, I made a version of one of the pages with absolutely no layout:
> http://www.students.tut.fi/~warp/povQandT/languageQandT_nolayout.html

*grin*
you forgot a layout element: spaces, periods, and commas...

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.scifi-fantasy.com
mirror: http://personal.lig.bellsouth.net/lig/z/9/z993126

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GFA dpu- s: a?-- C++(++++) U P? L E--- W++(+++)>$
N++ o? K- w(+) O? M-(--) V? PS+(+++) PE(--) Y(--)
PGP-(--) t* 5++>+++++ X+ R* tv+ b++(+++) DI
D++(---) G(++) e*>++ h+ !r--- !y--
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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In article <3d73ce94@news.povray.org> , Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:

>   Hierarchy, sections, subsections, index, site map, visually marking
> starting of different parts... All that is layout.

No, that is "structure".  See the various HTML specifications*.  So you
simply do not know the terminology and we were talking about completely
different things.  Oh well...

    Thorsten


* The HTML 4.0 recommendation for example (because I happen to have it at
hand, no other reason to mention it here) explains it in section 7.  It is
titled "The global structure of an HTML document".

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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In article <3d73d046@news.povray.org> , Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:

>   You do realize that tags like <H1>, <P>, <HR>, <I> etc are layout formatting
> tags?
>   No layout means that the whole page would be one contiguous line of text.

No, you are wrong.  See my other post.  They are not "layout", they are
"structure".  I had assumed you know at least the basic terminology, but
people not reading the manual seems to be a problem outside POV-Ray.  So I
would recommend to RTFM now, the continue arguing ;-)


    Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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Sorry to blow your arguments about HTML = content over structure out of the
water, Thorsten, but :

"HTML has its roots in SGML which has always been a language for the
specification of structural markup." - W3C HTML 4.01 Specification, section
2.4.1.

*runs and hides*

--
Pandora/Scott Hill/[::O:M:C::]Scorpion
Software Engineer.
http://www.pandora-software.com

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In article <3d73d225@news.povray.org> , Xplo Eristotle <xpl### [at] infomagicnet>
wrote:

See, that is the problem in this discussion.  You claim you know what you
are arguing about but in fact it turns out you don't :-(  This causes a lot
of confusion simply because you never actually read the specification you
are defending.  If you had, you would not be making such mistakes.  let me
gives you a few quotes from the HTML 4.0 recommendation:

> If you have a table - even if it's filled with ordinary tabular data -
> it's still layout.

11.1 "To minimize these problems, authors should use style sheets to control
layout rather than tables."

> If you put an image on a web page, where does it go?

This is determined in one part by the structure of the document.  A
paragraph ends and a new one starts.  That is structure.  If the new
paragraph starts and the first this is an image the the image will be part
of that paragraph.  Where does that paragraph go?  Well, that depends on the
layout and it not relevant for the person creating the document.  The user
has selected how he wants his layout.  Now, before you jump to nonsensical
conclusions before reading on, you have to be careful what exactly I am
saying:  I am against layout provided by the page.  It would be absolute
nonsense to prevent users from selecting layout as I detailed before.  users
are allowed as much control over layout as they like, but with the broser
providing defaults.  this is exactly how HTML used to work.  Even nowadays
you can still specify some layout yourslef:  Most browsers allow you to set
defatult standard font sizes and fonts, for example.

> If so, how much room should there be between
> the image and the text? This is all layout.

Yes, how much space is distributed on a page is layout.  I never said it was
not, did I?  My point still is in what why should content depend on the
space between an image and text?  Not at all, the user simply uses whatever
preference he/she likes.  In case you did not notice, you get a very
readable page if you use neither stylesheets nor font tags.  The image will
just be paced reasonably.  So why do you tell me what is layout if you don't
know?

> When you put words on a page, they go in a certain order. That is
> layout. The sentences and paragraphs also go in a certain order. That is
> layout.

See, you do not know the terms.  i replied to Warp about this including a
refernce explaining it.  It is "structure".

> Lines must break somewhere (or not). That is layout. There must
> be space between paragraphs (or not); that is layout.

Yes, but should it matter for the content creator is the space between two
paragraphs is two or twenty pixels?  No, the layout is up the the user
preference (see above).  Browsers could very well have been extended to
allow users to control this easily.  Instead any kind of control was taken
from users and they are now at the mercy of the page designer.  So users
lost control.


    Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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In article <3d73d2d3@news.povray.org> , Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:

>   Ok, I made a version of one of the pages with absolutely no layout:

No, you made a page without "structure".  I really expected you to know such
an important difference!  Maybe you should attend a course about the topic
or get a few good books.  You have a really big hole in your knowledge here!

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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In article <3D7### [at] scifi-fantasycom> , "Timothy R. Cook" 
<tim### [at] scifi-fantasycom> wrote:

>> Ok, I made a version of one of the pages with absolutely no layout:
>> http://www.students.tut.fi/~warp/povQandT/languageQandT_nolayout.html
>
> *grin*
> you forgot a layout element: spaces, periods, and commas...

Again someone who does not know the difference between layout and structure.
See my other posts explaining it.  Really, I assume people know at least the
basics if they argue about something.  How wrong I was :-(

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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"Thorsten Froehlich" <tho### [at] trfde> wrote in message
news:3d73e999@news.povray.org...
> In article <3d73d2d3@news.povray.org> , Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:
>
> >   Ok, I made a version of one of the pages with absolutely no layout:
>
> No, you made a page without "structure".  I really expected you to know
such
> an important difference!  Maybe you should attend a course about the topic
> or get a few good books.  You have a really big hole in your knowledge
here!
>


    Enlighten us Thorston, what are *your* definitions of "layout",
"structure" and "content" ?

--
Pandora/Scott Hill/[::O:M:C::]Scorpion
Software Engineer.
http://www.pandora-software.com

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