> Paul Tchistopolskii writes:
>  > If you have good lists - you have 95% of the functionality 
>  > usualy requested from tables. 
> 
> that just doesn't conform with my observations, I am afraid. how do
> you render the traditional matrix-like
> 
>    a  b  c  d
>    1  2  3  4
>    5  6  7  8
> 
> as list? (where the numbers have decimal points, and need lining up)
> 
> do other people agree that table rendering is not needed for a 
> daily working system?

I'l  just repeat myself. We got about 5 testcases from the 
'outher space' from people who wanted us to render their 
typical layouts. 

Some testcases has been rendered  with lists instead 
of tables. The clients were saticfied with the results.

Of course, I'm not saying that  good lists are equal to the tables.

What I'm saying is that if the system has no support 
for images -  it is critical. It usualy stops you right at 
the beginning. However, when there is no support for 
tables - it is not a show-stopper ( especialy if you know 
that it'l be there soon and that 'soon' is not one year 
forward)

For some reason you think that the tables part is a 
show-stopper. I don't think it is.  The time will show 
us who was right.

Netscape still has problems with rendering 
nested tables. Do we like it or not - it's the reality.

>  > Once again. The current shape of RenderX rendering engine 
>  > is sufficient  to  start  using it in the production environment.
> 
> I wish you would show me, then, how to do a simple dictionary layout,
> where the running head is
>  foo ... bar
> where "foo" is the first headword on the page, and "bar" is the last. 
> yes, I know this is very obscure for many people, its what I call a
> production environment. Yes, this is probably an XSL FO question, not
> a RenderX question.

Yes. There are problems with XSL FO. It may be not a 
good thing. It is just the best thing I see at the moment.  For a 
couple of reasons. 
 
>  > tag somebody else will come and say that because rendering 
>  > engine does not  supports 'nice' page numbering in the situation 
>  > when the page has a landscape orientation - it is imcomplete?
> 
> yup. until you can do what typical day-to-day formatters do in the
> real world, its incomplete. hopefully, in due course, you'll go
> *beyond* what current generation formatters do.

What is that 'typical' day-to-day formatter?  Is it 
MS Word? Or may be Jade? Or... Netscape?
Isn't Netscape the most widely used day-to-day 
formatter? And it still has problems with 
nested tables ...

Sure - the TeX package powered by  TeX guru may be 
unbeatable thing. In some environments.
UNIX server driven by UNIX guru may be 
also unbeatable thing. In some environments.
100 in-house developers, sitting at their cubicles 
pressing keyboards for custom development may 
be also unbeatable thing for some tasks. 
In some environments.

For example, I think in the environment 
when you have million of 'free' slaves it would 
be hard to sell any device that could replace 
10 slaves in their occupation ( even the device 
is realy good). In some countries ( not in teh US) 
it's *much* cheapre to hire a couple of persons 
who will press the keyboards doing some trivial 
opreations, than to bye the appropriate software. 
I'm not kidding. Environment matters.

For some reason most of end-users are running  Windows 
on their desktops. Even on servers. I'm not saying that 
Windows is better, or more reliable OS than UNIX.
For some reasons most of the people are using 
Windows for  their day-to-day typical tasks. 

Well ... it appears that I should start explaning the advantages 
of XML here.  Kind of strange occupation - so I'l not continue 
my explanation why people sometimes decide to use a 
software that  has a limited  functionality if comparing 
it to the software they are already using.

>  > Actualy, I see nothing wrong  here. I was working in some 
>  > different companies in different countries and most of 
>  > them were using this or very similiar model.
> 
> the "trust me, i am your friend" model, beloved of IBM in the old days?

I don't know what is wrong with IBM. I'm not that
experienced in marketing. It's better to say that 
I'm not experienced in the marketing at all. 

I think that for some ( obvious) reason most of the 
small companies are trying to build a good relations 
with their clients.  To me it's well understandable. 

Also, it's understandable why most of the users want 
to pay nothing but get the good software in return for that 
nothing. For free. Almost every week I'm receiving  some 
email when somebody  ( for some reason ) wants 
me to do some job for him. For free. Maybe, it's because 
I'm providing some open-source? I don't know.

I don't  think it's possible to saticfy everybody in this world.

The only way I see is to  follow the rules. If you see 
were renderx is breaking some moral rule ( whatever 
it may mean) -  please let me know.  I think that  it would 
be better to do in a  private email first, because you may 
be mistaken.  Or you are never making mistakes? 

>  > And I'm answering that our HTML may be 'incorrect',  because 
>  > it does not realy matter.
> 
> No. it does not matter, per se, that your HTML is invalid.
> It does not matter, per se, if the toilets are dirty when you go for
> an interview in a new place of work. Its just a simple test one can
> apply. 

What would you think about the person who is spending the 
whole day cleaning toilets in the building, just because he 
can not live with the feeling that some toilet is dirty? 

Of course, if it is his profession  - there is nothing strange with 
that person. Of course, it may be not good if we'l become a 
member of W3C and still have no time to validate our HTML.

Until that - I don't care about the hidden problems that 
make no harm to anybody. More. I don't care about 
supporting  Netscape version 2. I even don''t care 
too much about supporting Netscape version 3.
Actualy I'm so shameless, that I don't care about 
supporting browsers other than Netscape 4.* and 
MSIE v5.*, because I'm making products for the 
majority.  I'm also not optimizing every line of the code
when I'm writing the code.  I'm using profiler to optimize 
the code. Shame on me, maybe I'm realy too lazy.

>  > What particular problem do you have with our  HTML pages ?
> none. I was just being picky, so I threw it at validator.w3.org

The thing is that sometimes I have no time to sleep. 

Actualy, I apologize, but I have spend much more time 
than I realy have for  writing some letters. It means that 
I'l not  answer to this ( and related ) threads anymore
for about  7 days.

Please forgive me,  if something still remains unclear - 
I tried to make it clear. I had to.

Rgds.Paul.

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