Posted by The Magician on 10/05/85 11:17

In article <d7iiua$f1r$2$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk>, dorward@yahoo.com says...
> The Magician wrote:
>
> > But my problem is...I went on that validator page, looked up the different
> > types of "doctype declarations", and couldn't figure out which one fit. I
> > dunno html 2.0 from 3.2 or 4.01...or xtml, or sooperdooper html, etc.,
> > etc., etc... LOL! So...couldn't figure out which tag to copy & paste. So
> > you kinda see what type of novice I am.
>
> I seem to recall some mention of the W3C QA group thinking about producing a
> "Which markup language should I use?" document that should help people in
> your position in the future.
>
> That doesn't do you much good in the here and now though, so in brief:
>
> Generally speaking, documents authored today should be written in HTML 4.01
> Strict.
>
> Earlier versions of HTML, along with the Transitional and Frameset variants
> of HTML 4.01 contain junk that really shouldn't be used (with the sole
> exception of the start attribute for <ol>, but that comes up very
> infrequently).
>
> XHTML provides no practical benefits to the majority and introduces a number
> of problems (mainly down to user agent support, which is minimal).
>
>

Not trying to sound insulting...but...that all sounded like "blah, blah, blah, blah, blah..." to me.
(my fault...not yours.)
Just that sometimes you ask a computer expert a simple question and some kinda give you more information than you can process as a newbie.

> Earlier versions of HTML, along with the Transitional and Frameset variants
> of HTML 4.01 contain junk that really shouldn't be used (with the sole
> exception of the start attribute for <ol>, but that comes up very
> infrequently).

"Transitional...frameset variants... HTML 4.01"...???
(again...not criticizing YOU... just dat *I* don't know what your saying.)
I use Dreamweaver. (which is kinda over my head...but I somehow manage.)
I probably should be using something much simpler.
So it's kinda like being an office worker, who just wants to know how to open his email in Outlook Express...
not understand all of the the coding behind it, or about all of the coding behind Windows XP, and all of it's idiosyncrasies...

I really don't get all the new fangled web code stuff. (never really understood the old stuff either. LOL)
But in sort of my own analogy, it would seem to me that someone once invented a language...for sake of my own understanding...let's call it Chinese.
And they said "to understand it...you need to use this thing called a browser"
Then they made other browsers. And then other newer browsers...
And then they made Chinese v. 2.0, then Chinese version 4.01, then XChinese, then Chinese with CSS chopsticks, and so on & so forth.
And then the "experts" in Chinese said "All in the land should now only talk in XChinese with CSS chopsticks, because some new browsers may not
tranlate anything else!"


Seems to me...the page I did doesn't seem to be in any form of "New Chinese with special CSS chopsticks"...
Shouldn't ALL browsers understand and recognize older types of html without all sorts of fancy tags, etc.?
Even without the "Doctype Declaration", etc., etc., etc,...?
Like I said...it seems fine on my end. And again...TRUST me...the target audience are a club of recovering drug addicts and alcoholics like myself,
and will be a very small audience. So I seriously DOUBT that any of them will be using Mozilla, or Firefox, or Netscape, or Opera...
most will be lucky enuff to be computer literate, and will have IE5 or 6 on their machines...if they even have a machine to view it with.
They just won't have that kinda net savvy...yanno...?
(I just reread what I've just wrote...and it may sound angry or insulting at first. Trust me, it's not...and not meant to be.)
I just don't get it. And I'm just trying to understand it all in clear, simple, newbie terms.

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