The Time Sink

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

We made it through April Fools Day without too much fuss at the old homestead; the kids are too young to have developed that truly evil mindset. ...the type of mindset that drove my fellow instructor to hand out a one-hundred question test to the recert class on Saturday. He let them have at it for about twenty minutes before he gave in.

We hauled the kids up to the snow yesterday. Yep, even in sunny California with the weather in the high seventies on the valley floor, we were only about ninety minutes from enough snow to keep both the snowmobilers and small (and not so small) children quite happy. Daniel and Bradley tromped and stomped; slid down snow slides; threw snowballs at me (and learned about the effects of a gravity well the hard way); and generally had a grand old time. The both fell asleep on the way home and still passed out early considering the time change (you did make it to work on time this morning, didn't you?). ...and I wonder: Does JHR with his nocturnal schedule even change his clocks over? I mean, like, 'ya know, his feline familiar will show up and let him know it's chow time... And in Saskatoon, the cows run the show... And Bob's commented lately about how a Border Collie can take over a household...

...and then there's me: I moved all out clocks ahead at 1700 Saturday just to mess with Daniel's and Shelley's minds. ...and hey, mindset is everything, right? Mind over matter and all that.

Interesting times indeed. Virii doing their thing; companies hijacking open shares; Microsoft losing the entire company to the breakup artists. ...no, wait; that hasn't happened yet. Baby Bills or not? I'm totally in awe of the dichotomy of what I read on the net and what I saw on the evening news tonight.

No, I have not started watching television; Shelley and I were having a wind-down time tonight after the kids finally packed it in; the TV was on and the uninformed talking head got my attention with the Microsoft story.

...and to become informed on the Daynotes Browser Discussion, I cheerfully submitted my index page to W3C the other day so I could validate my work. Ahem. As some of you know, I hand code my pages in NoteTab Light. I'm a firm believer in learn as you go (never let Syroid or Svenson give you swimming lessons); and while I have the occasional (daily) lapse, I think I turn out reasonable code. W3C's validator had a fit: either get rid of the text decoration or move my declaration to HTML4. Well now, we simply cannot get by without "hover" or "no underline"; those are Required Daynotes Elements 3 and 3b as I recall; so on to HTML4. No dice. Simply translated: "You can't leave that mess here." Sounds like my mother an eon or two ago.

WT...? is wrong with my code? Cross checking the hard core types (Leuf and Seto), their code is the same. ...and they clear. Okay, Daynotes is a community for a reason; I mail my code to Dan the First. He can't see any problems, but he runs my stuff though HTML-Kit and passes it by the validator. It works. We can't figure out why, but it passes.

Back to work: I take that code and pull a line-by-line. I can't be, but I move my font declarations inside the positioning codes and Bob indeed is my uncle. I don't believe it, but <center><font> is not the same as <font><center>! ...and the error codes do not say that! Grrr.

Well, the proof is on the index/redirector page. Will it show up here? Perhaps. NoteTab will let me automate almost anything, so adding code in won't be a problem. From the time perspective that I write this however, I am disinclined to add code to every paragraph.

HTML, W3C, and why bother...

From JHR and copied to Bob Thompson:

Dear Dan,

First off: I, too would like to exhibit the W3C merit badge - as a merit badge; another scalp on my belt - no more, no less.

Nevertheless, I agree with Bob Thompson's take: In the last analysis, it's up to the browser to interpret, not the coder to be infallible. Particularly given the ~4 or more flavors of the "standard" - Micro$oft's, Netscape's, Opera's, and the myriad *X flavors.

I can, and will, change a "-" to an "=" to get my code to work because it is needed. I do not really care to spend some of my vast amounts of spare time reviewing an arcane and difficult-to-follow printout in order to achieve code that works no better than my ad hoc version. Even if it earned the merit badge - I have no assurance that it is perfect, and will display perfectly, by other browser's "standards".

To me, this is what computing is all about: The machine does my bidding - It does not program me. Certainly, I must consider the limitations of the system - but that does not imply that I am bound by them (my desktop vs. the standard desktop, for instance). I can &, will, if necessary, expand them. That is why the GUI has (mostly) replaced the balky CLI for (most) users. If we were tools of the system, we would still be setting switches on a panel and watching LEDs flicker -the system saw nothing wrong with that. The system is our tool (thus far), although sometimes this is lost sight of in a justified awe of The System.

Regards,

JHR
--

[J.H. Ricketson in San Pablo]
culam@micron.net

...and I agree. ...to a point. For Bob and those who use FrontPage and the other "We'll do it all for you" HTML packages (myself included, as I use NetObjects Fusion for one site---now there's a learning curve!), I would expect the package and the browser to be on the same page (quite literally). For the hand-coders and minimalists, I believe it's incumbent upon us to turn out code that can be read across a similar spectrum of browsers. Something as simple as not having a table closed properly left one Daynoter in the lurch with Netscape users: they saw nothing more than a masthead, while the IE crowd merrily browsed the site.

To this end, I think it is reasonable to attempt to turn out decent code. How do we know if it's decent code? Well, any of the validators will look at a page and provide some quick feedback. The W3C validator may be the most religious of the bunch and may even be attempting the impossible: to set a standard on the Net. Nonetheless, they do have a means to measure compliance with a standard and they do issue "merit badges" for successful work. Again, successful by their marker and not by Bo's, or Bob's or Byte's. ...and while we all know we don't need no stinkin' badges, we can be reasonably sure code that makes it through the W3C validator will render well and not crash the major browsers.

But there's also a game here: to me it became a puzzle to be solved. A puzzle with clues and grues and a pennant for victory. ...and for me that's all it takes; there must be something in my ancestry that won't allow me to let go until I've found the amulet that unlocks the box that holds the key that opens the door to the treasure room. Let's see, Altair, Commodore, DOS, DR-DOS, WfW, Win95, NT, Linux, HTML, Perl... So far; so good. Hoist another pennant, and I'll buckle on my keyboard and we're off!

So, do I plan to have each page validated by W3C? Nah, frankly it would be too much work at this point. If I used an editor with a built in validator such as HTML-Kit, likely. As it is, from time to time, I routinely pass my main page through one of the validators I mentioned several weeks ago. Each time I learn a little more; and each time I say, "That's bunk" to one of the messages. But the code gets a little tighter and the load times stay low and that last is one of my goals. Sooner or later I'll get close enough for an end run; for now "good enough" is good enough. ...and while this discussion is nowhere near over, I did find a new mantra for the week (and perhaps for posting above the workbench):

Too much heavy thinking and not enough lightheartedness in my net-life right now leads to a total rebellion from it all. Let me tell you about our cats<G>:

Mischief is the oldest and most seriously whacked. She actually seems to have a bipolar personality, likely because she started life with a family who fed her pork chops instead of kitten chow. She lived next to Shelley's apartment about ten or so years ago. Shelley, being the warm hearted person she is, purchased food more appropriate for a small kitten and invited her to live with her. She needed a name and I proposed Miss Chief since she seemed to think she was in charge of the place; Mischief it is to this day (although I think Bradley was closer when he used to pronounce it "Misfit"). She's one of those who will stretch out to be petted one minute and claw you just for breathing in the same area the next. 'Nuff said; not my favorite, although we do share a love of miniature marshmallows.

The youngest of the lot is Soda; he's a golden longhair. He is a he (more or less, the whole gang is fixed), but it's interesting to watch how people react to him: a seriously high percentage look at that long hair and say, "She's just beautiful." I have to echo the Baby Blues cartoon of the other day: the parents give the kids each a teddy bear. The girl names hers something warm and fuzzy and takes it off for a tea party; the boy names his "Truck" and pushes it across the floor making motor noises. ...and the father says, "So much for gender-neutral toys." No wait; that's getting toooooo serious and Matt's in charge of deep thinking this week! 'Kay, back to Soda... He acquired his moniker as Shelley and Daniel stopped off to get a Coke at the local Zip & Rip (she was carrying Bradley at the time). This poor bedraggled kitten wandered over from the building demolition site next door. Let's see, one baby in the belly; another in the car seat... What's one more? She did good though, this time she started at the vet's instead of bringing another stray home and listening to my rant on feline diseases. Soda is pretty much a typical cat: gets his minimum spec eighteen hours of sleep per day; complains about the food situation most of the rest; and beats up on Mischief for amusement. Oh, and likes to play hockey with ice cubes on the linoleum floor.

...and then there's Tun. Actually, Run Tun Tun (you'll recall him as the model for the camera test in January. He was the runt of the litter born to Merl, the previous property owner (at least; she showed up when we moved in). We put all the kittens up for adoption through our vet but Shelley was concerned about the little one. Today he weighs in around fourteen pounds. Shelley took him to the vet thinking he had a tumor; the vet informed her that he was just fat.

He's a good 'ol boy though, so he rates a second paragraph. We're thinking he may make a case for reincarnation; it appears he may have been a dog in a past life: he does tricks; is intensely loyal to me, and oversees the boy's bedtimes. When Bradley goes to bed, Tun will jump up and sleep at the foot of his covers until Brad is out; when Daniel comes in, he'll move over there and stay with him until he too is out. At that point, he'll check in with Shelley and likely park himself under my chair until I'm done typing for the evening, then mosey in and spend the night with Shelley and me. He's the only cat that I've ever seen roll over upon command and he'll play tag with you around the house. A strange one... But then again, what would you expect at my place.

...and you just think I'm here. Not even; Shelley and I are on the California coast taking a serious “time out” from the daily routine. Grandpa and Grandma are spending today through Sunday at the house while we join thirty other couples from the church for the annual couple's retreat. There's only about six hours actually scheduled over three days; that leaves lots of time for shopping (without interruptions) and eating a real meal (without interruptions) or just relaxing and talking (without interruptions). We enjoyed it so much two years ago that we took on the job of organizing last year's. This year is another team's turn while we relax.

So short shrift today; we left this morning for a three hour drive (not a three hour cruise). This afternoon I'll do my best to take notes as we partake of the fine fair at F. McClintocks restaurant; I'm sure Dr. K would be interested. No duck though, just fine American fare: steak, more steak and even more steak. I'll likely add some seafood into the mix just to balance out the various types of saturated fat. Tomorrow will start with breakfast at a local roadhouse famous for truckstop food; Saturday evening will entail a sitdown dinner at the hotel's fine restaurant and Sunday morning's repast will occur in their ocean view dining room. All in all, it should be a very nice several days.