Lee Passey wrote:
Thus, my analysis, and your restatement, are still correct.
First you cited the wrong spec and then you got the semantics of PCDATA and CDATA the wrong way. In the end you came out right, but that doesn't make it a correct analysis.
This objection, and Marcello's response, are both based on a faulty assumption: that the primary use of HTML files will be online, served up by some sort of HTTP server. I would bet that the vast majority of all HTML files offered by Project Gutenberg are downloaded to a local computer, and then read while offline.
But how does the file get to the local harddrive in the first place? Maybe you don't realize that the PG website is serving an average of 300.000 file requests for a total of 130 GB a day. That is 12 Mbit/s, or 8 T1 lines under full steam all day long. In our case it is very important not to constipate the pipes with all those packets needed to open and close a connection which carry no useful data.
And if I want to substitute my own styles for those of the original poster, downloading to a local file system is required.
Not at all. Your better browser (Mozilla) will let you define you own user stylesheets and even switch between multiple author stylesheets. (Thats what the C in CSS stands for.)
If you're going to insist that user selection of styles is not possible, the question of whether they are internal styles or external styles is irrelevant, but if you're going to permit user flexibility in selecting styles, the issue of multiple GETs is irrelvant.
Go, read the specs: you can have multiple stylesheets inside one document. Open this file in your better browser (Firefox). Then select: View | Page Style <HEAD> <STYLE type="text/css" title="red"> P { color: red } </STYLE> <STYLE type="text/css" title="blue"> P { color: blue } </STYLE> <STYLE type="text/css" title="green"> P { color: green } </STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <P>Don't show this to any DP Project Manager. </BODY> -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org