• (cs) in reply to dhromed

    Not sure what your first language is, dhromed, but in English, the following is an instruction:

    "I want you to display this text ('xyz') in green and in Arial"

    In HTML:

    <font face="Arial" color="green">
    xyz
    </font>

    Maybe not the best way of doing this particular job, but that's not really the point.  I suppose you could argue that you're saying "this is how the document looks" rather than "this is how I want you to make the document look" but is that any more than a semantic difference?

  • (cs) in reply to johnl
    johnl:
    Not sure what your first language is, dhromed, but in English, the following is an instruction:

    "I want you to display this text ('xyz') in green and in Arial"

    In HTML:

    <font color="green" face="Arial">
    xyz
    </font>

    Maybe not the best way of doing this particular job, but that's not really the point.  I suppose you could argue that you're saying "this is how the document looks" rather than "this is how I want you to make the document look" but is that any more than a semantic difference?

    You are confusing the use of the word "instructions".   That HTML snippet you gave is NOT an "instruction", it is actually more of a request or a suggestion.  Far, far different from an "instruction" in a line of code that is executed without exception or variation  (excluding hardware failure and the like). 

    Are people really that confused about this?




  • (cs) in reply to Jeff S

    "I'd like you to display this text in this font if you can be bothered"?  I think not.

    Technically, any instruction is actually a request or suggestion.  If you take a driving test, you get "instructions".  But really, they could be called suggestions too.  If the instructor tells you to take the second left, you could go right if you really want to.

    The problem is that you think everything in the English language is absolute.  It's not.  You have to understand that English is a mix of lots of different languages, and that since the colonial era different countries have started to use the language differently.  On top of that, different individuals, like any language, use it differently.  You can say that the words "program", "programming" and "programmer" (and other related words) mean this elite clique of humanity (to which you of course belong), but you would be completely ignoring this simple concept of language variation.  If you'd like me to leave you to this stange world-view, fair enough.

  • (cs) in reply to johnl

    johnl:
    "I'd like you to display this text in this font if you can be bothered"?  I think not.

    Technically, any instruction is actually a request or suggestion.  If you take a driving test, you get "instructions".  But really, they could be called suggestions too.  If the instructor tells you to take the second left, you could go right if you really want to.

    The problem is that you think everything in the English language is absolute.  It's not.  You have to understand that English is a mix of lots of different languages, and that since the colonial era different countries have started to use the language differently.  On top of that, different individuals, like any language, use it differently.  You can say that the words "program", "programming" and "programmer" (and other related words) mean this elite clique of humanity (to which you of course belong), but you would be completely ignoring this simple concept of language variation.  If you'd like me to leave you to this stange world-view, fair enough.

    Wow, you sure know a lot about me!  (If you read more carefully, you might have even noticed I said basically the same thing about different meanings for the same word and how that can lead to confusing discussions).

    So, you say all "instructions" are techincally requests or suggestions?   That means when I run my C++ program, the computer has the option to sometimes set i to 1, sometimes to 2, sometimes skip some lines, and so on, sometimes delete my hard drive, sometimes email my mother, despite what I instruct it to do with my code?  No wonder I have so many bugs in my code!  I thought it was me. 

    Conversely, guess what:  the browser I write has *every right* to ignore formatting *suggestions* when rendering a document, and in fact many browsers (i.e., small screen ones for mobile phones) actually do that.

  • (cs) in reply to Jeff S

    (If you read more carefully, you might have even noticed I said basically the same thing about different meanings for the same word and how that can lead to confusing discussions).

    Hmmm, maybe I should read your posts more carefully.  But you don't seem to believe it, or we wouldn't be having this debate.

    That means when I run my C++ program, the computer has the option to sometimes set i to 1, sometimes to 2, sometimes skip some lines, and so on, sometimes delete my hard drive, sometimes email my mother, despite what I instruct it to do with my code?  No wonder I have so many bugs in my code!  I thought it was me.

    Technically, yes it does.  For example, if you're on a different operating system, you can expect different results. 

    Conversely, guess what:  the browser I write has *every right* to ignore formatting *suggestions* when rendering a document, and in fact many browsers (i.e., small screen ones for mobile phones) actually do that.

    The difference (at least, the difference that's relevant to your post) is that you usually write a program (say, in C++) for a specific operating system, and would be surprised if someone ran a Windows program on Linux, a website is expected to support different browsers. Note I emphasise "usually", since a Java application will support multiple operating systems.  However, they often use similar techniques to websites - if it's this OS then do this, else do that.

    The discussion (at least from my end) isn't about whether "programming" is the best word for writing HTML, it's about whether it's a valid     word for writing HTML.
  • (cs) in reply to johnl

    Actually, JeffS, in that post you said absolutely zip about dialect variation

  • Solmyr (unregistered)

    and learned that the developers were able to find a way to tie back together style and content within a technology designed to do the opposite ...

    This post had me laughing so hard I was literally in tears...

    And it was so beautifully put, too ...

    Thanx :)))

     

  • (cs) in reply to johnl
    johnl:
    Actually, JeffS, in that post you said absolutely zip about dialect variation

    Correct. Ironically, I phrased the first sentence in my post wrong -- perhaps due to dialect varation mistakes on my part!

    What I should said is "I think *we* are confusing different definitions of the word 'instruction'."

    My bad.
  • (cs) in reply to Jeff S

    Ironically, I phrased the first sentence in my post wrong -- perhaps due to dialect varation mistakes on my part!

    LOL, maybe. 

    What I should said is "I think we are confusing different definitions of the word 'instruction'."

    Agreed.  I'd perhaps extend that to "different definitions of the word 'program'". 

  • iWantToKeepAnon (unregistered) in reply to mlathe
    mlathe:
    this is just like the old "MY_ZERO_CONSTANT=0"... just in case you ever want to redefine the value of 0, you will have a rubust enough system to do it in.

    OMG! That is soooo the system that I support. Here's 3 lines (from different parts of the system): const DString ONE_SPACE =" "; const DString SPACE(" "); const DString SPACES01 (" ") ;

    That last line was such a hoot. As you can probably tell, there were many more to follow. They /actually/ went all the way to SPACES30!!!!!! 30! Just thinking about, and seeing, this code again makes me wanna go throw up.

    l8r anon.

  • Stuey (unregistered) in reply to iWantToKeepAnon

    You people are snotty. Get back to work and stop talking about HTML. It's silly anyway.

  • tim_abell (unregistered) in reply to chrismcb

    chrismcb said: "If I wanted a broken browser and a horrible user experience I would go install firefox myself."

    --

    That's proper flame-bait. So here's a flame:

    You can stick with IE if you like, but I am considerably more productive in FireFox, mainly due to a combination of tabbed browsing and plugins. (I notice no justification in your post).

    And, just for a cheap shot: if you haven't installed FireFox how do you know it's so bad?

    Tim

  • Caleb Mauer (unregistered)

    Wow, this WTF has now evolved into the Boostrap library.

  • gunr2171 (unregistered)

    Besides Bootstrap, it's the founding principal behind tachyons.

    https://github.com/tachyons-css/tachyons/issues/12

  • (nodebb)

    Seventeen years later, and this is not a WTF, it's Tailwind CSS (https://tailwindcss.com/) - utility first CSS.

  • bumbuzzle (unregistered)

    Haven't anyone saw tailwind css before?

  • EpicGatorade (unregistered)

    This article certainly aged well.

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