Posted by dorayme on 12/21/76 11:48

In article <zl2dg.523$AH3.159@reader1.news.jippii.net>,
"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> wrote:

> dingbat@codesmiths.com <dingbat@codesmiths.com> scripsit:
>
> > Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> >
> >> That does not make a document type declaration tell them anything.
> >
> > Ah, so it's "tell" you have the problem with
>
> I don't think _I_ have a problem here. You seem to like to play with words.
> This reminds me of some discussions concerning the concept "sex".
>
> > So let's try another draft
> >
> > "The document type declaration (*) is used by the the web browser
> > to
> > identify what type of document it will treat it as, and what set of
> > rules
> > to use when displaying the web page."
>
> I'm not particularly interested in euphemistic descriptions of doctype
> sniffing. It's kludgery, it's not based on anything "telling" browsers
> something, it's not identification, it's not about any rules (except in the
> sense "whatever a browser does" - it's after all a program, i.e. an
> algorithmic monster).
>
> > I have to say though, although your comments have (as always) been
> > entirely accurate, you could have been a little more helpful by simply
> > giving an example of what you considered correct, rather than just
> > griping about what was wrong.
>
> I think I mentioned early in this thread that the topic has been discussed
> before, and the OP could find answers in the archives. We've now gone
> through some rounds and we are almost reaching the point where some previous
> discussions have _started_. As usual, the thread will of course die rather
> soon. Hence the recommendation to check past discussions rather than opening
> an issue once again.

Just before it dies:

The browsers have rules, that is what algorithms are, they are
affected in some machine-like way by these doctype declarations.
It is not like they are a doc who is affected in different ways
by different patients, a doc might treat the same patient quite
different depending on how much Jim Beam he or she (ie. the doc)
drank the night before. How about "affected in a consistent way"
being a quality that each particular version browser tends to
have? How sober are these monsters?

--
dorayme

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