Re: lynx-dev HTML4.0 and default charset

[David Woolley]

> 
> Btw., your formulation "character set in which to render" shows signs of
> infection by popular-browser-think. :)  One doesn't render "in" a charset,
> I'd prefer to say one renders (possibly "in" a _font_) "assuming" a charset.

Would you be happier with "from which to render"; I certainly had no intention
of implying anything about the local character set.  Any mention of fonts
is dangerous because a common abuse is things like <font
face=wingdings>J</font> (a smiley face).  This is one I have seen recently,
but the symbol font is more common.

> 
> > If the status line says HTTP/1.1, and there is no charset, a HTTP 1.1 
> > browser
> > cannot legitimately assume that it is dealing with, say, Ukrainian,
> 
> You seem to assume that the response version string is end-to-end, but
> it is supposed to be hop-by-hop information only.

From what I remember, CERN passes through the protocol unless it has
a cache hit.  CERN is HTTP 1.0.  We're now on squid so I can't double
check, but I think CERN may even cache the protocol.

It would seem there is a new ambiguity here becasue the proxy is more
or less acting as client and server in this case, and should arguably
be doing character set identification (as it seems do some Russian ones).

Generally, though, this, like a lot of things in web standards, is damage
limitation, and I think it unlikely that correct character sets will be
common for many years.