[whatwg] Style sheet loading and parsing (over HTTP)

[gary turner]

Jon Barnett wrote:

<snip>

> Prompting a user for any sort of consent would be useless and confusing,
> because users don't know what MIME types are.  Even a dialog that says 
> "This
> document claims to be plain text, but looks like a hypertext document.  Do
> you want to render it as a hypertext document?"  would be useless and
> confusing because, frankly, users don't know the difference between plain
> text, web pages, and Microsoft Word.

Trying to outguess the author or server configuration is not necessary, 
and IMO is beyond the scope of the browser.  The /knowledgeable/ user 
could be given a means of switching MIME types within the UA's tools.  I 
don't see any compelling reason,  though.
> 
<snip>
> 
> I understand your concern.  You want authors to correct mistakes in their
> code (and server configurations) to comply with standards.  Authors should
> be encouraged to do so, but only in ways that are not detrimental to end
> users.  End users don't make a good middle man for telling an author when
> his code doesn't agree with a spec.  End users tend to blame the browser
> first.
> 
Absolutely.  Authors and server admins have the responsibility to get 
things right.  What I do not understand is how having a browser follow 
the rules is detrimental to the user.  On the contrary, ignoring the 
server or meta content-type is harmful.  Others have cited examples.

The author is the first user, depending on his test-bed UAs to show him 
his errors.  Not all end users  are gormless, and their feedback is 
valuable.

cheers,

gary
-- 
Anyone can make a usable web site. It takes a graphic
designer to make it slow, confusing and painful to use.