On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Owen Jacobson wrote:
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> On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 19:35:03 -0800, Howard Kelley wrote:
>[color=green]
> > The answer to my question -- despite the rather snide remarks from Mr.
> > Flavell -- is the Meta tag known as REFRESH.[/color]
>
> Do you understand what Mr. Flavell wrote? For that matter, do you
> understand what *you* wrote? I doubt.[/color]
I am sometimes curious as to why certain people stubbornly promote
widely-known bad answers, even when confronted with the
well-engineered soluion. One might draw certain conclusions from the
fact that they rarely ask for more details of what the questioner is
really trying to achieve, nor make any attempt to bring the questioner
up to speed on relevant concepts (in fact, as in this case, they'd
prefer to obfuscate the issues of just where the defined interworking
boundaries lie), nor make any mention of the potential disadvantages
of their promoted method - which suggests that they're either unaware
of them (which is no position to be in when offering advice) or prefer
not to reveal them (which is worse).
After all, by the time that the questioner learns about such problems
they adviser will probably be long gone, like certain "consultants" I
could remember having to deal with.
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_u...oward%20kelley
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> > For example: <meta http-equiv="REFRESH"
> > content="1;URL=HTTP://WWW.xxx.yyy/zzz.htm">
> >
> > This line on a blank page will forward to another address after a
> > 1-second delay."[/color][/color]
It might do that, or not, depending on the client agent and user
options. What it will surely do is earn a WAI violation, amongst
other disadvantages. And search engines will have no clear idea
what's going on.
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> > You may quibble that HTML doesn't "do anything" but this little line
> > does route you to another site or page[/color][/color]
As I said, as far as HTML is concerned, "meta" is just a container.
HTML doesn't deal with the details of what that container could hold.
In this case it's purporting to be an http-equiv, meaning that it's
purporting to be equivalent to some specified HTTP header. But
RFC2616 doesn't codify such a header - it's a vendor extension, which
indeed has been rather widely implemented, but like all vendor
extensions, it's been done with the aim of wowing the suggestible,
rather than achieving a well-engineered solution to an already-solved
problem.
This extension does have its uses, I admit, in appropriate contexts
and with consenting users; but as a substitute for HTTP status 30x it
can only be rated as bogus, by anyone who understands the wider
picture.
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> > with a minimum of effort.[/color][/color]
Naturally, the "minimum of effort" by the author is always preferable
to doing the job properly in the interests of the user - well, in some
people's catechism, anyway. Sigh.
HTML Code for Forwarding 
