A dear friend of mine writes a blog. That blog has recently been attacked by some random pseudonymous blogger. Let’s call that otherwise unnamed blogger U. One of U’s many (baseless, mostly incoherent) points of contention is that my friend’s HTML skills are lacking.
U, of course, can’t manage to tear him/herself away from the Transitional DTD. This is because he/she can’t seem to lay out a web page without using TABLEs: for those of you who don’t write web pages, take my word for it that this is a no-no from the point of view of good HTML. Or better yet, don’t take my word for it; check the specs:
Tables should not be used purely as a means to layout document content as this may present problems when rendering to non-visual media. Additionally, when used with graphics, these tables may force users to scroll horizontally to view a table designed on a system with a larger display. To minimize these problems, authors should use style sheets to control layout rather than tables.
Add that to his/her bizarre method of captioning pictures, and his/her insulting little rant between NOSCRIPT tags that assumes that you’ve deliberately turned scripting off and aren’t, say, using Lynx or something perfectly reasonable… well, one might wonder where U gets his/her authority to question the HTML skills of another.
Oh, and U? If you’re reading this, you might want to consider the benefits of E-mail. That way if you really feel the need to trash someone, you can actually do it to their face. And if you want your sniggering little friends in on the action so they can silently applaud your irrational and unimaginative rants against The Enemy, then you can use the Blind Carbon Copy header. Of course, if courtesy and courage aren’t virtues in your world, then forget I said anything.
Oh, wait, you already have.