Frames--What's the big deal?

[Thomas Dowling]

>> While its true that frames can be used for advertising and such (I'm
>> in favor of this... I want other people to pay for my Web access!)

Hear, hear!  With anti-commercial sentiments so widely [and rabidly]
voiced in some circles, it's nice to hear from someone who looks at
the situation this way.

>> 
>> Think of a Web browser as a remotely programmable user interface.  Frames
>> is a mechanism that allows separation of the data and the user interface
>> controls.  Much cleaner, much more stable for data (providers don't have to
>> keep updating their data files as the user interface changes).

Yes, but...

Web browsers were originally built to be document presentation
mechanisms, not remotely programmable user interfaces.  (You may 
remember some suggestions that you would add structure to your 
document and let my browser render it as the browser-and I-see fit.)  
One problem database providers are running into is that getting a web 
browser to do what they want requires so much pulling and tweaking 
and let's-use-this-tag-since-it-looks-good-on-Netscape-ing that the 
browser ends up being used for what it wasn't designed for.

>> 
>> We've been lobbying for such capabilities for almost 2 years.  Kudos to
>> Netscape for providing this capability!
>
>I agree that FRAMES look very nice.  BUT how well do they interwork 
>with other HTML tags?  Are they future-proofed?  Should user 
>interface extensions be implemented in HTML?
>
>We have already seen how the TABLES tags have changed following input 
>from other communities.  I suspect that we will also see changes
>in FRAMES.  I would not like to have to change large numbers of
>documents containing an obsolete implementation of the tag, if such 
>changes occur.

Amen to this.  Let's not overlook the fact that there's still no
"official" table spec, and perhaps not even a clear definition at
this point of what "official" can and will mean.

For the past two months, every database vendor I've spoken
with has been drooling over the possibility of adding frames to
their web interfaces.  The cynic in me suggests that someone
should be urging moderation in the rush to kewl new tags.

Thomas Dowling