[whatwg] RWD Heaven: if browsers reported device capabilities in a request header

[Matthew Wilcox]

>
> Scripting on the client side for the purposes of content negotiation *does
> not work*
>
Please, understand this. Because browsers pre-fetch as soon as a node is
> created there can be no client-side solution to this issue with the current
> HTML/JS specifications and browser behaviour. The image linked in the HTML
> is *always* requested, and it is requested before the client can do a
> damned thing about it.
>


>
> On 6 Feb 2012, at 20:03, Charles Pritchard wrote:
>
> > On Feb 6, 2012, at 11:49 AM, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky at MIT.EDU> wrote:
> >
> >> On 2/6/12 2:26 PM, Bjartur Thorlacius wrote:
> >>> On Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:59:14 -0000, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky at mit.edu>
> wrote:
> >>>> That really depends on what the application is doing. Depending on
> >>>> input capabilities, you may want to have multiple pages instead of a
> >>>> single page for some sort of configuration setup, for example.
> >>>>
> >>> Whether to use monolithic forms or paginated wizards is a presentation
> >>> thing
> >>
> >> Not on the HTML level.  Not if you want to allow useful non-scripted
> semantic submission of partially-filled-in info in the paginated case.
> >>
> >>> that need not even have anything to do with HTTP. You can fetch
> >>> half the monolithic form and fetch the rest when the user has filled in
> >>> most of former half.
> >>
> >> Not without script.
> >
> >
> > I really didn't like the consequences of server-side scripting to manage
> dependencies. It was always more work than simply doing the scripting in
> the client side. It was more prone to error. It let our coders get away
> with less rugged design.
> >
> > I'm in the responsive and universal design camp. I'm in the
> accessibility camp. At present, it does require scripting. I'm building web
> apps, so, scripting comes with that territory.
> >
> >
> > It seems to me like these folk are looking for <iframe defer> and <style
> defer> and some sort of media selector for the network information API, to
> minimize bandwidth on metered connections without needing to use scripting
> to do that work.
> >
> > I'm interested in seeing a solution here. I do not think server-side
> management is the right one.
> >
> >
> > -Charles
> >
>
>