WYSIWYG editors and extraneous code

[JQ Johnson]

Thomas Dowling writes:
> You only say that because it actually seems to do what its users agree is
> "the job."  If, for example, WordPerfect8 users suddenly discovered that
> they couldn't open a Word97 document because Microsoft wasn't actually
> adhering to a spec they claimed to use, all hell would break loose.

As anyone who has ever tried to write code to parse RTF can tell you, this
happens all the time.  Every new version of Word breaks RTF, the supposed
"lingua franca" of Microsoft document formatting.

IETF has it right.  Publish standards, but put your faith in
interoperability testing as the TRUE test of workability.  "*Rough* consenus
and working code."

JQ Johnson                      office: 115F Knight Library
Academic Education Coordinator  e-mail: jqj at darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon       voice: 1-541-346-1746
Eugene, OR  97403-1299          fax: 1-541-346-3485