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Webmaster Forum / HTML, CSS, Scripts / HTML / July 2008Can Either of These be Legal HTML?
I'm trying to work with some HTML generated by a Middleware tool and frankly, both look illegal to me. Assuming (perhaps a dangerous thing to do) that the tool is creating something valid, what would these two lines mean? I know what the "individuals.CS..." is. That's what's called a profile field by the tool I'm using, and it would resolve to a value a user typed in previously, if the user has been at this page beforehand. Otherwise, the value would be empty. It's what's around this field that I don't get. <OPTION {Individuals.CS-Appl Academic.Program_1_Nm Default:SELECTED} VALUE="1">Choose A Program</OPTION> I can't find any evidnece that you can put a variable in an OPTION tag, nor that you can surround anything in a form element with {}. Then there's this one: <OPTION <pstag:profile default="SELECTED" pmatch="1" value="Individuals.CS-Appl Academic.Admit_Type" poutput="SELECTED" /> VALUE="1"><Choose Admit Type></OPTION> This has too many <> pairs I think, and I don't get the ps:tag with parameters syntax at all. Plus, you can't have two VALUE fields in an option element. Do either of these make sense? Thanks. Ken Two bits of good advice: [1] Don't guess whether your HTML is legal. Test it. [ http://validator.w3.org/ ] [2] When asking questions in alt.html, provide a URL to an entire page, not just a small snippet of HTML.  SignatureGuy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> > Two bits of good advice: > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > [2] When asking questions in alt.html, provide a URL > to an entire page, not just a small snippet of HTML. Why does he need a URL to an entire page to ask if a particular construction is proper HTML? He isn't asking why his page doesn't work. He isn't even claiming to have a page. Scripsit Harlan Messinger: > Why does he need a URL to an entire page to ask if a particular > construction is proper HTML? People who understand HTML (as well as the ways in which people learn HTML, or - more often - fail to learn HTML) know the reason(s). People who don't should just believe what experts say. SignatureJukka K. Korpela ("Yucca") http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/ > Scripsit Harlan Messinger: > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > -- > Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/ If I had a working page that existed in some place that you could see it, I would. I did not want to go into the gory details but here goes, since you've raised this issue in this way. My university (I am a programmer on staff, not a student) has purchased a boatload of PeopleSoft modules. One of them is CRM. CRM has a "Document Designer" that produces primitive HTML, if you are willing to live with a page that contains no branding or style of any kind. We are still at the development stage with this product. I don't even have a "working" web page for people here to see, as I'm working through other issues of having this new, humungous product that won't even let you see what it is doing with form parameters. The only way to add branding, a stylesheet, etc. to the "page" is to export it and modify it in an editor outside of CRM. So I exported it and brought it up in Firefox just to see what it looked like now. I saw really weird junk in the two fileds I posted HTML for. I knew that whatever was there was probably not legal, but since I'm much more comfortable in Java (not JavaScript) than HTML, I wanted to be sure that there wasn't something I've been unable to find out about the OPTION element or about using some product-specific tag inside of an HTML element, e.g., ps:tag, before I rewrite the HTML the way I think it needs to be. If you really want all the HTML for the page I can provide that, but it won't be very useful I expect. Ken Scripsit OccasionalFlyer: > I saw really weird junk in the two fileds I posted HTML for. It wasn't HTML. That's one of the reasons why URLs rock. If you look at a _file_ in a publishing or management system, it may contain HTML tags, but there is no guarantee that it is even meant to be HTML. Instead, the system is supposed to generate an HTML document from it by applying some rules. The result might be invalid or otherwise wrong or poor, but that's a different issue, and we haven't seen even a glimpse of it. SignatureJukka K. Korpela ("Yucca") http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/ > If I had a working page that existed in some place that you could see > it, I would. I did not want to go into the gory details but here [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > .... > Ken Hi Ken, Can you contact support for this product? I assume the product was bought with help documentation and contact/support details(?) I did not use PeopleSoft CRM, so I do not know exactly what is going on, but as already mentioned in this thread, there are some obvious possibilities: 1. the code has to be processed/transformed at server-level to valid (X)HTML before it is sent to the browser, 2. or the code is complemented by something like an XSLT stylesheet, to instruct the browser to produce valid (X)HTML (this might be visible if there would be an URL) 3. or there is a namespace declared for example in the DOCTYPE (a bit like for MathML), that tells the browser how to make sense of the pstag nodes (this would be visible with the URL) Implementation at #1 (server-side pre-processing) does not depend on browser XML+XSLT capabilities, and it would be the easiest way to be dealt with by browsers, but you will see what happens when you will have a working version. > Scripsit Harlan Messinger: > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > HTML, or - more often - fail to learn HTML) know the reason(s). People > who don't should just believe what experts say. That makes no sense. >> Scripsit Harlan Messinger: >> [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > That makes no sense. Substituting 'God' for 'HTML' -- guys who wear their collar backward talk exactly like that. > >> Scripsit Harlan Messinger: > >> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > guys who wear their collar > backward talk exactly like that. Did you say collar back to front? <http://dorayme.890m.com/jokes/priestCollar.html> Signaturedorayme > Did you say collar back to front? > > <http://dorayme.890m.com/jokes/priestCollar.html> <G> -- Speaking of back-collar dudes, I believe Sirens was filmed in your back yard. Please post pictures. > > Did you say collar back to front? > > > > <http://dorayme.890m.com/jokes/priestCollar.html> > > <G> -- Speaking of back-collar dudes, > I believe Sirens was filmed in your back yard. Has an Australian model in it, Elle Macpherson, she is known here as The Body. I am not sure she can act? > Please post pictures. You are, of course, referring to Norman Lindsay, our famous artiste. I know him best from having read aloud (as many times as I could corner a child - usually my own - to listen to it,) The Magic Pudding, which he illustrated: <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/The_Magic_Pudding.jpg> Signaturedorayme Scripsit Harlan Messinger: >> People who understand HTML (as well as the ways in which people learn >> HTML, or - more often - fail to learn HTML) know the reason(s). >> People who don't should just believe what experts say. > > That makes no sense. Nobody expected you to make any sense of it. After all, you haven't had anythinh to say on HTML for a long time. SignatureJukka K. Korpela ("Yucca") http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/ > Nobody expected you to make any sense of it. After all, you haven't > had anythinh to say on HTML for a long time. So what have *you* had to say lately that's helpful? sherm-- SignatureMy blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net > Scripsit Harlan Messinger: > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Nobody expected you to make any sense of it. After all, you haven't had > anythinh to say on HTML for a long time. You seem to think that compared with everything else in human knowledge, HTML is some deep and special mystery that involves its own rituals and calls for its own kabbalistic treatment, and I guess that makes you feel special, but, hey, guess what? I do know HTML, not as exhaustively as you do but pretty darn well, I work with it almost every day regardless of whether I show it off here, I understand the importance of using it properly ... and I'm not buying your BS. Your remark makes no more sense with respect to HTML than it does to any other topic. Harlan Messinger wrote: (Responding to Jukka K. Korpela) >You seem to think that compared with everything else in human knowledge, >HTML is some deep and special mystery that involves its own rituals and >calls for its own kabbalistic treatment, and I guess that makes you feel >special Drama Queen. >Why does he need a URL to an entire page to ask if a particular >construction is proper HTML? He isn't asking why his page doesn't work. >He isn't even claiming to have a page. He needs to show the entire page because the parts he didn't show can determine whether his HTML is correct. If the first line is <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN"> the answer as to what is and isn't valid HTML won't be the same as it would be if the first line was <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> . SignatureGuy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> >> Why does he need a URL to an entire page to ask if a particular >> construction is proper HTML? He isn't asking why his page doesn't work. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> If someone asked a question about the legality of a particular play in football/soccer ("Can the goalie do such-and-such?"), if the answer depends on the league and/or tournament in which a match is being played, then an appropriate reply would be, "It depends on the league and/or tournament". "Post a video of an entire match from beginning to end" would be a pointless reply. >>> Why does he need a URL to an entire page to ask if a particular >>> construction is proper HTML? He isn't asking why his page doesn't work. [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >and/or tournament". "Post a video of an entire match from beginning to >end" would be a pointless reply. When asking for free help from known experts, refusing to give those experts what they say they need in order to help you may give you a sense of self rightiousness, but it won't get you any help. Please read [ www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html ]. SignatureGuy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> >>>> Why does he need a URL to an entire page to ask if a particular >>>> construction is proper HTML? He isn't asking why his page doesn't work. [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > experts what they say they need in order to help you may give you a > sense of self rightiousness, but it won't get you any help. I didn't say anything about refusing to give "known experts" what they say they need in order to help. I'm talking about experts (whether genuine or self-styled) who decide to make innocent people jump through hoops that are unnecessary to answer their particular question because it makes them feel important. (Are you saying you ARE the kind of person who would ask the person with the football question for a video of an entire match?) > Please read [ www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html ]. I have no need to read this, and I know perfectly well that when the question being asked by a user is along the lines of "Why won't my page work?", it's advisable for the user to give a URL for the page instead of assuming a priori that the problem lies within one tiny snippet of code that he chooses to paste into his question. This isn't one of those cases. >> When asking for free help from known experts, refusing to give those >> experts what they say they need in order to help you may give you a [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >hoops that are unnecessary to answer their particular question because >it makes them feel important. The two statements are equivalent. All you did was reword the first statement to contain an assertion that you know better than the person who has the answers what he needs in order to answer. You may very well be correct, but that doesn't matter because you aren't the one offering free help, and thus your opinions abot what the person who is offering the free help needs do not matter. >(Are you saying you ARE the kind of person who would ask the >person with the football question for a video of an entire match?) Yes! Assuming that I don't know the answer, that someone who I know to be an expert does know the answer, that the expert is willing to answer for free, and that the expert says that he needs to see a video of the entire match in order to give me a good answer, I would't assume, as you do, that I know more about what he needs than he does. Even if I was 100% sure that he doesn't need what he says he needs, I would *still* give it to him because not doing so would be likely to result in him refusing to give me free advice -- and rightly so. >> Please read [ www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html ]. > >I have no need to read this, In my opinion, you have a rather large need to read it. Refusing only hurts you, so I won't bother you with the suggestion again. SignatureGuy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> >>> When asking for free help from known experts, refusing to give those >>> experts what they say they need in order to help you may give you a [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > the one offering free help, and thus your opinions abot what the > person who is offering the free help needs do not matter. Uh, yeah, I know that if the answer to a particular question (as in the case of the OP's question) doesn't depend on knowing the document type, then I know that a person who offers to answer the question doesn't need to know the document type in order to answer it. In fact, if *you* think you needed to know the document type in order to answer his question, then it follows that you really don't know the correct answer to his question. >> (Are you saying you ARE the kind of person who would ask the >> person with the football question for a video of an entire match?) > > Yes! Assuming that I don't know the answer, that someone who > I know to be an expert does know the answer, that the expert > is willing to answer for free, ROFL. I'm dying to know what "for free" has to do with what information is required to answer the question. If someone pays you, you suddenly need less information in order to come up with the same answer? Remarkable. It's funny--you're discussing this in terms of such things as "the information we need" and "a URL" and "for free", which all come out of guides to asking questions on Usenet that I've read before and which, in the context in which they're used, make sense. I get the impression you've read all this too, but missynthesized it, and now you're spitting out these catchphrases like context-independent incantations, not noticing that they aren't applicable in the situation to which you're applying them. For example, there's the "for free" part. Where "for free" comes into it is when a person asking a question is well advised to realize that he can't take getting correct information for granted and has no recourse if he's dissatisfied with the responses. It probably also means that a person on the answering side who wants to be a jerk, has the right to be a jerk and the OP has no recourse in that case. Nevertheless, not getting paid doesn't mean the jerk isn't a jerk. > For example, there's the "for free" part. Where "for free" comes into it > is when a person asking a question is well advised to realize that he [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > a jerk and the OP has no recourse in that case. Nevertheless, not > getting paid doesn't mean the jerk isn't a jerk. Has it occurred to you that if a person is being paid to do a job, the onus is on that person to work to arrive at the solution, i.e. specifically ask/find by other methods the data required for a solution? Without having the necessary data, one can only guess at a solution. One giving "free information" should not be subjected to extra work. Indeed, if there is extra work performed, it should be the OP, whether by providing the data or learning HTML and finding his/her own solution. I personally admire those who spend so much of their time providing help to others. By providing them with a url up front, less of their time is needed trying to get the data needed for a correct answer so they can help others too with that time. SignatureWayne www.bayareabluegrass.org A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. [Thomas Jefferson] >> For example, there's the "for free" part. Where "for free" comes into >> it is when a person asking a question is well advised to realize that [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > One giving "free information" should not be subjected to extra work. One who isn't paid shouldn't be subject to having to give a response at all. Anyone who gives a response in that situation is volunteering. But if you "volunteer", but act like a jerk while "volunteering", by subjecting the *questioner* to unnecessary work because of the sense of power it gives you, then you're a jerk. > Indeed, if there is extra work performed, it should be the OP, whether > by providing the data or learning HTML and finding his/her own solution. Wow, even if the work is unnecessary or irrelevant to the question? It must give you such a great sense of power to coerce people into pointless exercises to get a question answered. Look, if you don't want to answer, don't answer. > I personally admire those who spend so much of their time providing help > to others. Even when they're jerks about it? > By providing them with a url up front, less of their time is > needed trying to get the data needed for a correct answer so they can > help others too with that time. Only in those cases where the URL is relevant. >>> For example, there's the "for free" part. Where "for free" comes into >>> it is when a person asking a question is well advised to realize that [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > subjecting the *questioner* to unnecessary work because of the sense of > power it gives you, then you're a jerk. You seem to have a very large chip on your shoulder. If you feel the information provided is sufficient, you should provide the correct answer to the OP yourself. Please do not presume to know what is required for an answer unless you have already the correct solution. >> Indeed, if there is extra work performed, it should be the OP, whether >> by providing the data or learning HTML and finding his/her own solution. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > pointless exercises to get a question answered. Look, if you don't want > to answer, don't answer. I don't and I don't ask for information. If you don't have the answer, don't presume to know what is required for a good solution. >> I personally admire those who spend so much of their time providing >> help to others. > > Even when they're jerks about it? Your perception, not necessarily the correct view. >> By providing them with a url up front, less of their time is needed >> trying to get the data needed for a correct answer so they can help >> others too with that time. > > Only in those cases where the URL is relevant. Again, see above. If you have the solution, provide it and no more requests will be needed. If not, don't be critical of those trying to help. SignatureWayne www.bayareabluegrass.org A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. [Thomas Jefferson] > You seem to have a very large chip on your shoulder. If you feel the > information provided is sufficient, you should provide the correct > answer to the OP yourself. The OP asked if this is legal HTML: <OPTION <pstag:profile default="SELECTED" pmatch="1" value="Individuals.CS-Appl Academic.Admit_Type" poutput="SELECTED" /> VALUE="1"><Choose Admit Type></OPTION> How much more information does one need to answer the question? It's not legal HTML, and never has been for *any* HTML DTD. sherm-- SignatureMy blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net Scripsit Sherman Pendley: > The OP asked if this is legal HTML: > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > How much more information does one need to answer the question? Quite a lot, really. To begin with, what does "legal HTML" _mean_ (generally or to the OP)? Which jurisdiction shall be applied? > It's not legal HTML, and never has been for *any* HTML DTD. What do DTDs have to do with legality? Anyway, the following document was "legal HTML" before HTML 2.0 (before people even nominally considered DTDs in the HTML context): <TITLE>DEMO</TITLE> <PLAINTEXT> <OPTION <pstag:profile default="SELECTED" pmatch="1" value="Individuals.CS-Appl Academic.Admit_Type" poutput="SELECTED" /> VALUE="1"><Choose Admit Type></OPTION> And you can check and see that modern browsers still render it the intended way. As so often, the OP's question wasn't the one that needed an answer. We don't know what the real problem is, but we might get closer if we asked why he wondered whether something is "legal HTML" when it apparently isn't HTML at all and isn't meant to be treated as HTML. And, of course, a URL would have been essential too. In fact, if the OP had considered providing a URL, he might have found the answer without posting anything... SignatureJukka K. Korpela ("Yucca") http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/ > Scripsit Sherman Pendley: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Quite a lot, really. To begin with, what does "legal HTML" _mean_ > (generally or to the OP)? Which jurisdiction shall be applied? Who the hell cares? Seriously. Who cares? In practical terms, ignoring any and all anal-retentive hair-splitting, it's not legal HTML. You know what - I've had enough of your useless ivory-tower BS. You used to be helpful, but now you're nothing but a pain in the a.s. Goodbye. *plonk* sherm-- SignatureMy blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net wayne wrote: >You seem to have a very large chip on your shoulder. If you feel the >information provided is sufficient, you should provide the correct >answer to the OP yourself. Please do not presume to know what is >required for an answer unless you have already the correct solution. >If you have the solution, provide it and no more requests will be >needed. If not, don't be critical of those trying to help. providing the correct answer to the OP would also be a good way of demontrating that no further info is required. Alas, further info *is* required to give a correct answer. ------------------------------------------------- >The OP asked if this is legal HTML: > > <OPTION <pstag:profile default="SELECTED" pmatch="1" >value="Individuals.CS-Appl Academic.Admit_Type" poutput="SELECTED" /> >VALUE="1"><Choose Admit Type></OPTION> ...which is the wrong question, if the above is actually the contents of a local file that gets transformed into valid HTML before being served to the user's browser. >How much more information does one need to answer the question? To answer the *right* question, one needs to know whether the above is served to the user's browser as is, or whether it is transformed into something else first. >It's not legal HTML, and never has been for *any* HTML DTD. Many systems have many files that are not legal HTML for any HTML DTD. The question is whether someone who clicks on a URL sees the contents of those files without any sort of transformation. And the simplest way to answer *that* is to ask for the URL and them click on it. SignatureGuy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> >One who isn't paid shouldn't be subject to having to give a response at >all. Anyone who gives a response in that situation is volunteering. But >if you "volunteer", but act like a jerk while "volunteering", by >subjecting the *questioner* to unnecessary work because of the sense of >power it gives you, then you're a jerk. Again the assumption that you know better than the person offerring the help what that person needs to give a good answer. >> Indeed, if there is extra work performed, it should be the OP, whether >> by providing the data or learning HTML and finding his/her own solution. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >pointless exercises to get a question answered. Look, if you don't want >to answer, don't answer. Again the assumption that you know better than the person offerring the help what that person needs to give a good answer. >> I personally admire those who spend so much of their time providing help >> to others. > >Even when they're jerks about it? Again the assumption that you know better than the person offerring the help what that person needs to give a good answer. >> By providing them with a url up front, less of their time is >> needed trying to get the data needed for a correct answer so they can >> help others too with that time. > >Only in those cases where the URL is relevant. Again the assumption that you know better than the person offerring the help what that person needs to give a good answer. In the post that started this thread, a URL *is* required to give a good answer. The chances are extremely good that the URL will point to perfectly valid HTML and that the snippet hat was posted was from a local file that gets transformed before being served to the user's browser. But you are so arrogant that you refuse to question your assumption that you know better than the person offerring the help what that person needs to give a good answer. SignatureGuy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> > In the post that started this thread, a URL *is* required to give > a good answer. Nonsense. > The chances are extremely good that the URL will > point to perfectly valid HTML and that the snippet hat was posted > was from a local file that gets transformed before being served > to the user's browser. The question wasn't "will my middleware produce legal HTML from this." It was "is this legal HTML." It isn't - case closed. sherm-- SignatureMy blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net >> One giving "free information" should not be subjected to extra work. > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > subjecting the *questioner* to unnecessary work because of the sense of > power it gives you, then you're a jerk. Oh, I dunno. Whenever I volunteer a close encounter with a female acquaintance, casual or otherwise, I really expect them to put forth a little unnecessary work to show their appreciation of my beneficence. Actually, the onus is on them to be as obeisant and servile as I wish in order to gain the most from my altruistic bestowal. As they grovel and mewl, writhing in humility, I am inspired to perform at a level which is nothing less than my best and provide only the cream of my plentiful bounty to their beseeching devoidness. What could be more natural? SignatureNeredbojias http://www.neredbojias.net/ Great sights and sounds > One giving "free information" should not be subjected to extra work. > Indeed, if there is extra work performed, it should be the OP, whether [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > needed trying to get the data needed for a correct answer so they can > help others too with that time. Sunday sermon. Now and then it is interesting when the helper has to try to imagine the problem of the helpee, it gives breathing room to get off the rails and do a bit of exploration. You see, it is even nicer for the helper to get something more out of the exchange than the satisfaction of helping one individual. And by having to imagine an interesting problem that might be meant, rather than a ho hum one on the usual railway track, the helper now and then turns up something more interesting for more people. A truly imaginative helpee should therefore be a bit obscure in order to help the helper help the helpee and at the same time help himself or herself and others to explore ... Look, I won't describe this process at length except to say that in the end it will bring us all together like Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice - except that the names will be more like Korpela, Bergamot, Stuckle and Newbury; there they will be, all a huggin' and kissin' and letting all that angst ebb away... Signaturedorayme >ROFL. Make sure the F is clean before you RO it... :) >I'm dying to know what "for free" has to do with what information >is required to answer the question. If someone pays you, you suddenly >need less information in order to come up with the same answer? Remarkable. If I am paying someone, I have paid for the right to tell them "No, I don't agree that you need the information you say you need" and still get an answer. If I am wrong, the answer might be bad, but theyt still need to either help me or refund my payment before walking away. If they are offerring free help and I act that way, they are likely to simply tell he to stuff it, having no contractual obligation to help me. If you want free help, you need to give the helper what he says he needs or do without the help. SignatureGuy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> > If I am paying someone, I have paid for the right to tell them > "No, I don't agree that you need the information you say you need" > and still get an answer. When you say, pay a yearly subscription for help, I doubt if there is anything in the contract that says or implies this. In fact, I would have thought it was part of a paid contract that the helpee does not say stuff like this, any more than he pays for the right to blow raspberries in the face of the poor helper. It is a common misconception that money and power sanction one to behave badly. It allows one to do this, but allow and sanction are different. > If you want free help, you need to give the > helper what he says he needs or do without the help. It depends. On 1. how strange the stranger helper is. 2. how articulate or competent the helpee is 3. how much the helper himself is prepared to go the extra mile to help others On this fine Sunday morning, I say to you, life is more complicated than you imagine. <g> Signaturedorayme >> If I am paying someone, I have paid for the right to tell them >> "No, I don't agree that you need the information you say you need" [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > stuff like this, any more than he pays for the right to blow raspberries > in the face of the poor helper. Actually I think if the helper is being paid the requirements on the helpee are stricter. If you provide useful help everyone will be happy and you will get paid. If you don't there may be some dispute. Maybe you can say it wasn't my fault because the customer asked stupid questions. But you don't want to end up having that argument, and if you do, you want the contract to have said "customer must provide proper description and a URL". > that the expert > is willing to answer for free Those who most use the phrase 'for free' in dispensing their services are often the ones that exact severe non-monetary payments, sometimes without good reason, often for the sheer pleasure of bullying, often as a gauche demonstration of their superiority, and almost always to make sure they get more than the simple pleasure of helping someone for its own sake. Signaturedorayme >Those who most use the phrase 'for free' in dispensing their services >are often the ones that exact severe non-monetary payments, sometimes >without good reason, often for the sheer pleasure of bullying, often as >a gauche demonstration of their superiority, and almost always to make >sure they get more than the simple pleasure of helping someone for its >own sake. That is true in some cases, and in such cases your choice is to pay the price or do without. There is, however, another class of cases, where the person who needs the help only *thinks* he knows better than the person offering the help what the person offering the help needs to know. If he is such an expert at knowing what is needed to arrive at the answer, why doesn't he simply answer it himself? In this second case, your choice is still the same; pay the price or do without. SignatureGuy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> > >Those who most use the phrase 'for free' in dispensing their services > >are often the ones that exact severe non-monetary payments, sometimes [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > In this second case, your choice is still the same; pay the > price or do without. Yes, I know this one but it is not quite right. There is a third choice and you might understand it by reflecting on the surprisingly optimistic and uplifting expectations we have of others. It is a difficult idea to grasp I guess. Perhaps you might start to see it in dramatic cases: a mate has fallen to a bullet in a battle, he is suffering badly, he asks for impossible things from you. You oblige as best as you can, no matter how unreasonable. There is no money involved. OK, he is a mate, but even if not and merely 'on the same side', the same thing goes. OK, he is not even 'on the same side', still the same thing might go, he appeals to you as a human being. Starting to get the idea? No? The idea is that people do look to others for help without having special obligations to them. I expect you will simply dismiss these thoughts as being too dramatic. Pity, because in these thoughts lies a complication at the heart of human relations that you are missing. Signaturedorayme >No? The idea is that people do look to others for help without having >special obligations to them. > >I expect you will simply dismiss these thoughts as being too dramatic. >Pity, because in these thoughts lies a complication at the heart of >human relations that you are missing. I do indeed reject what you say, but not because of too much drama. I reject it because it is *wrong*. It is as if you were to show up at an auto repair business with your car behind a tow truck, tell the mechanic that it won't start, and then, when he asks you to pop thenhood open so he can take a look, tell him that a mechanic should help a car owner without imposing special obligations such as opening the hood! This is just another form of the same old assumption -- that you know better than the mechanic does whether he needs to look under the hood in order to diagnose a car that won't start. And the answer is the same as well; if you are such an expert, go ahead and prove it us by solving the problem without looking under the hood. Either that or face the same choce we have been discussing, which is to either pop the hood like the nice mechanic asks, or to do without his services. SignatureGuy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> > >No? The idea is that people do look to others for help without having > >special obligations to them. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > help a car owner without imposing special obligations such as opening > the hood! I suspected you would not understand. You shoot from the hip with a blunderbuss. You do not define the "it" in your "it is "wrong"". I have told you there are situations where people are not particularly obliged to do more than they do when asking questions and you are simply ignoring the considerations I gave you. > This is just another form of the same old assumption -- > that you know better than the mechanic does whether he needs to look > under the hood in order to diagnose a car that won't start. You are running off like a hare. You need to slow down. It is not obvious that this is the assumption of someone who refuses to open the bonnet for the mechanic. You are so busy running so fast that you jumble everything up and jump to conclusions which are not warranted. > And the > answer is the same as well; if you are such an expert, go ahead and > prove it us by solving the problem without looking under the hood. > Either that or face the same choce we have been discussing, which is > to either pop the hood like the nice mechanic asks, or to do without > his services. This is just you failing to consider a whole range of other possibilities. Signaturedorayme > When asking for free help from known experts, refusing to give those > experts what they say they need in order to help you may give you a > sense of self rightiousness, but it won't get you any help. At this point, I don't think giving Jukka what he asks for will get you any help either. He's gone from being brusque but helpful, to just randomly yelling at newbies. Besides which, no one needs to see a complete page to know that what the OP posted is not legal HTML. It includes instructions for server- side processing, which *should* be parsed by the "middleware" (as the OP called it) and replaced with legal HTML before being sent to a browser. If what the OP posted *is* being sent to browsers, that indicates a problem with the middleware that needs to be addressed. sherm-- SignatureMy blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net > If someone asked a question about the legality of a particular play in > football/soccer ("Can the goalie do such-and-such?"), if the answer > depends on the league and/or tournament in which a match is being > played, then an appropriate reply would be, "It depends on the league > and/or tournament". "Post a video of an entire match from beginning to > end" would be a pointless reply. What's more, the snippet that the OP posted would not be legal in any league, err, HTML version. sherm-- SignatureMy blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net >What's more, the snippet that the OP posted would not be legal in any >league, err, HTML version. Not so. As someone else pointed out, the snippet might very well be something that gets transformed into valid HTML before being served to the browser. If so, seeing the entire document would by likely to make the nature of the transformation clear. SignatureGuy Macon <http://www.GuyMacon.com/> > I'm trying to work with some HTML generated by a Middleware tool Don't use HTML through middleware. This really is the place where XML & XHTML start to make sense instead. Most XML-claiming middleware tools use 3rd party XML tools (DOMs, parsers) and so they always work with reliably well-formed XML. It just works - of the things that go wrong, XML encoding isn't one. (Although There are almost no middleware tools that use HTML is an SGML-aware manner. Those that try are almost all handling it as strings, with code written per-tool, and they're unstable and prone to subtle errors. It's a snake-pit. When you find a bug, it's just as likely to be because the low-level SGML encoding has gone weird (as here), as it is to be a useful or interesting appication-level problem. Remember that the last (NB _last_) step of a web publishing process should often be to transform internal XML/XHTML into HTML 4.01 for best publishing compatibility. If you _must_ handle HTML internally, it's usually best to do this dump and simply - entity encode the lot ( "<" => "<"), then treat it as a string. > Do either of these make sense? No. They aren't valid HTML, because they're not even well-formed SGML. Errors at this level are a real pain to work with - you can't run a sensible parser over the content as it will just reject it, and you don't want to get involved in regex-level string-snipping to deal with it yourself (that way lies madness). It's impossible to comment further without knowing more context, but this generally makes me abandon that middleware product as being too broken for worthwhile use. |
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