Posted by Neredbojias on 09/04/05 12:37

With neither quill nor qualm, Jukka K. Korpela quothed:

> Neredbojias <neredbojias@neredbojias.com> wrote:
>
> > You could do it with javascript, but if the visitor has javascript
> > turned off...
>
> Even with JavaScript enabled, it would not work. There is no way in
> JavaScript to recognize the user as the same person or other being that
> earlier visited the page. Even if you could do that, and you cannot,
> you could not know whether he, she, or it visited the page between the two
> visits.

Yes, that is all true, but the OP did not explicitly state that the
"next person" had to be a different person. Using the "session-
variable" strategy of attaching a search string to the url and relying
on the history of the back button to recognize it (which, of course, it
does,) the tactic is, to a degree, possible.

>
> If you have password protected pages that require a user id and password,
> and if you record all visits, and if you have reliably identified the
> people to whom you give an id, and if nobody ever lets anyone else use his
> or her id, then you recognize users and visits, and send alternating
> content. Of course, the recognition and other logic would need to reside on
> the server.

-And such would (possibly) be a 100% reliable solution whereas
javascript is never 100% reliable simply because of user-interaction.

>
> The conditions will not be fulfilled in the sublunar world, however.
> Especially the part "nobody ever lets anyone else..." fails.

Html itself is not ideally "faultless", and css, in my humble opinion,
is based on a very flawed model, but nevertheless, those are the tools
with which we have to work,

--
Neredbojias
Contrary to popular belief, it is believable.

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