Re: lynx-dev Re: making Web pages universally usable: 10 steps to

[pg]

In a recent note, Nelson H. F. Beebe said:

> Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 16:54:10 -0600 (MDT)
> 
> >> Do they perhaps mean "or" rather than "and" here?
> 
> No: space following the open tag is to be omitted, and also space
> preceding the closing tag is to be omitted.  That allows them, for
> 
Then the boolean expression should have said "or", not "and".

I recall a programmer 35 years ago trying to master the paradigm
shift from FORTRAN II to FORTRAN IV.  She coded (I transpose to
the key of C because I don't remember FORTRAN well enough):

    /* Data points less than zero are to be omitted, and
       also data points greater than 100 are to be omitted.
    */
    if ( datum < 0 && datum > 100 ) datum_is_invalid();

She was dismayed and asked advice when the statement failed to
eliminate the invalid data.  I said, "You mean 'or', not 'and'."

She persisted with, "No, I want to eliminate the data that are
too small AND the data that are too big!"

Natural language is _so_ imprecise.

> I should have mentioned that verbatim-like environments, such as
> <PRE>..</PRE>, and the old obsolete <PLAINTEXT> tag, are exempt from
> 
Thanks for the expansion.

> It is regrettable that, while SGML is a grammatically rigorous markup
> system, its grammars are extremely difficult for humans to parse
> 
Natural language is _so_ imprecise.  :-)

-- gil
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