Re: lynx-dev Problem with parameters sent in Lynx

[Peter Rasmussen]

On Sun Dec 29 22:01:59 2002 David Woolley <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> I have only once validated my source against W3C's validator and it was just
>> like using lint when compiling C source. Too much noise.
>
>It's different from lint.  Every error is a real error.  The only complication
>arises if your browser vendor fails to provide a DTD for their browser; that
>means that, if you use proprietory extensions, you have to construct your
>own DTD in order to validate the page correctly.  Specifying an HTML 4.01
>DOCTYPE and then using IE5 extensions does produce an invalid document, 
>which may cause problems if the DOCTYPE puts a recent browser into
>strict mode.
>
You are very wrong and very wrigth ... sorry, 'right' :-)

Not every error is a real error. When the browsers with their default settings,
that most people use are able to display a page correctly I can't/won't consider
it an error in any other way than as academic. An having the equivalent of a
M.Sc. many years ago ("dad, did you have a dinosaur as a pet when you were a 
kid?") I believe I know academia (not now of course, where young students don't
learn anything) so I have an opinion.

Developing towards a specific browser will always be wrong, so there I can't
agree with you more.

My own model is to develop towards W3C standards and as HTML4.01 is the latest
HTML standard that doc is my bibel. I do however, not know it ny heart, and when
I have a specific problem I search it (/ in Lynx, and Ctrl-F in Mozilla) read
about it, fix my code, test it, and if it works I forget about it until next
time I have a problem.

I have never read any specific browser code. Not Mozilla, not Opera, Not IE.
I don't even know where to look for it.

I have a problem I want to do. I plan its functinality and possible execution
in a browser. I write a C program. I build it as a .cgi. I test it against my
favorite browsers, Mozilla and Opera and if it seems to work there I am 
satisfied and continue development.

Fringe browsers like IE and Lynx come afterwards when the engine or mainparts
are ready and i am ready to make it all more robust against strange 
environments and Lynx came in to the picture like this.

I have used Lynx a lot but never cared about its facilities because it has
always been able to do for me as a _user_ what I needed. It is the damndest
fastest browser on Earth when reading text and downloading files and most
moron sites that wants to exclude anything but IE usually forgets Lynx so with
Lynx you can [often] sneak in anyway.

However, in such situations I have often missed that another page request was
_not_ sent when I asked for the page source. Even Mozilla has only recently
had this fixed whereas Opera has had it for ages.

So it seems I have in less than 24hours become very interested in the 
development of Lynx and I hope I can start understanding the code so I can
soon start sending in some patches to what I find important. As far as I
remember Lynx is GPL'ed, eh?

Peter

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