News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by theoh on Friday February 26, 2016 @05:38PM (#11184822)
That sentiment brings me back to the old days of unix geeks writing structural html with no concern for appearance.

The separation of structure and formatting is not practical for serious media of any kind. You can't separate form and content. Nor would most people want to, because (visual and other) complexity is an inevitable and rewarding part of human experience...

Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by mintplant on Friday February 26, 2016 @05:48PM (#11184876)
Instapaper? Reader View? RSS readers? Ebooks? Separation of form from content is both practical and commonplace.

Your blog post may be beautifully styled, but that makes no difference if I can't even load it, or the fonts are so thin I have to squint to try to read, or the glaring white background makes me see floaters. A blind person doesn't care about the whizz-bang of $framework if your JS-only site breaks their screen reader.

Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by iamphilrae on Friday February 26, 2016 @05:54PM (#11184907)
Likewise I read all Hacker News links and comments over an iPhone HN app. Absolutely don't miss the form at all except in the cases where the source HTML is not semantic and so the reader mucks it up. But that's an issue with structure relying on form.
Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by tuxracer on Friday February 26, 2016 @07:18PM (#11185344)
Most screen readers look at the output of the DOM. They aren't trying to parse RAW HTML from the server. Really wish this myth would go away :/
Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by crispyambulance on Friday February 26, 2016 @07:08PM (#11185295)
The problem for authors is accommodating all the different modes which readers may consume their media. Well-styled hypertext presented in the way the author intends/imagines is never going away, there will always be a place for that and it is very important.

For other use-cases... that's why we have HTML and stylesheets. The problem has been solved, mostly sort-of.

Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by albedoa on Friday February 26, 2016 @06:18PM (#11185024)
> The separation of structure and formatting is not practical for serious media of any kind.

As already mentioned, this is demonstrably false. I'm choosing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't understand how a great amount serious media is served nowadays, since the alternative means you are attempting to score internet points with a second-level contrarian post. But I have to wonder where you've been.

Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by theoh on Friday February 26, 2016 @06:33PM (#11185109)
This has nothing to do with technology. A movie can't be accurately summarized textually. A book of poetry is profoundly coloured by the typeface chosen. A corporate logo is a visual artifact that cannot be communicated any other way.
Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by albedoa on Friday February 26, 2016 @07:27PM (#11185397)
You're applying an absurdly narrow definition to the term "serious media" to support your false and equally absurd narrative. Congrats, you got your points.
Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by roywiggins on Friday February 26, 2016 @08:21PM (#11185578)
The AP's articles are printed in dozens of newspapers and websites. The content is completely separated from the form. Wire services have been doing this forever.
Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by blt on Friday February 26, 2016 @06:27PM (#11185067)
"Serious media"? What does that even mean? I guess all those articles I read with mostly text and a few inline images/videos aren't serious.
Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by specialist on Friday February 26, 2016 @11:00PM (#11186012)
"The separation of structure and formatting is not practical for serious media of any kind."

The separation of structure and formatting is not practical for serious advertising platform of any kind.

Re:After fifteen years of downtime, the MetaFilter gopher se... by jmspring on Friday February 26, 2016 @06:31PM (#11185094)
"You can't separate form and content." -- as the author, but you should think about the reader.

They may not be on the device you chose to support.