Re: LYNX-DEV error recovery for form parsing

[Laura Eaves]

> Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 05:47:29 -0700
> From: address@hidden (David Combs)
>
> The only way to work this thing is to change the world --
> not to make lynx duplicate netscrape's probable tens of millions
> of dollars of special hacks for bad html each year, buty
> to somehow get the html fixed.
>...
> Perhaps the best thing to do for the admins on THIS list
> when they get a complaint from one of THEIR customers
> trying to get into an bad-html site is, "No can do; they
> have to fix it at the site."
>
> And adivise them to write the company president if all else
> fails with the www-admin or author.
>
> Or, "use NS for that site".
>...
> we simply cannot make lynx code hard to understand.
>...

Well, I think the forms problem affected enough sites that
it was a very important fix to make.  And despite Fote's code comments
that the fix was a hack, I don't think it is that hard to understand.
Even though I'm new to this code, I don't think form tags belonged on the
style stack to begin with.  So it doesn't even seem like a hack to me.

I've exchanged more mail with webmasters on the forms problem than
anything else, and so far only 2 of them have actually fixed their html.
The others ranged from indifferent to hostile.  So I hope the "formhack" will
be incorporated asap.  Maybe you should make a 2-7-2...

As to second guessing scrambled html in general, I agree that would be a
major (and probably ill-advised) undertaking.

Thanks again for the fix.
--le
;
; To UNSUBSCRIBE:  Send a mail message to address@hidden
;                  with "unsubscribe lynx-dev" (without the
;                  quotation marks) on a line by itself.
;