[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

In this situation, I don’t think you correctly understand the context. Doesn’t make you an idiot, just not a specialist… and in this case, I am a specialist. Similarly, if my car breaks down, I’m damned near useless and have to employ a mechanic for anything more involved than adding fluids or changing wiper blades.

Sorry Rev, but based on your responses, especially that first one, have been that you are of that opinion.

Why do you think they did, or that this was deliberate?

Is because they told me good enough?

Statements like that tell me that you are not a programmer and are therefore an amateur at best when it comes to interpreting these standards.

If that is the case, please don't tell my my boss. He's paying me for to much to think I can't write code. As with all my other employers for the last 33 years.

But, I am usually coding in a corporate environment where I tend to not code to standards like this. Except as a consumer of API or data packet of some sort and need to work out what is in it, what is supposed to be in it and how to handle the fact that nothing seems to actually follow standards. Or deliberately use the loopholes. And this includes corporations that publish specs of what theirs software or devices do but don't actually stick to it.

EPUBs are fundamentally simple things, although the details can and do get complex. They’re web pages wrapped up in a special package, with a few extensions and omissions for spice. I’ve been dealing with those standards for damned near a quarter-century. I’ve got my campaign ribbons from the Browser Wars, and I ran (read: maintained and rebuilt) a corporate website for nearly seven years.

And just like you, I stopped reading here as you are again treating me as an idiot who has no idea what is going on. Alright I read it, but, it only left me wondering when you were going to get to the point. And yes, I did know all that, and have discussed just about every point in it over the years in various places.

And to the mods, I'll stop after this post.

I know I’ve quoted it, so go back and look at how the CSS spec talks about the generic font families. Don’t just hunt for a phrase to support your viewpoint – read the paragraph. Notice the high value it places on preserving the author’s intent, and (yes, I’m about to say it again) consider the use of “should” over “may” in that context. That paragraph is telling developers to make their best efforts to implement this, and while some situations may make compromises unavoidable, for God’s sake be careful with them!

Firstly, I read the paragraph. Several times. I even quoted it back to you in full as you excluded an important part. So, I understand it. And, I understand what you have written here. And honestly, what you state here proves my point. "Should" still means that it can be excluded. You have actually stated this every time that you try to state that they are not allowed to do this. So, please read what you are typing.

And honestly, don't you think the Kobo developers know all this? They made the decision years ago not to do this. They obviously haven't seen a reason to change that decision.

Therefore, from a programming perspective, there is no justifiable reason for this omission. Therefore, given the RFC 2119 definition of “should” and the weight placed on conforming to authorial intent in the CSS 2.0 and 2.1 specs (for EPUB 2 and 3, respectively), this aspect of Kobo’s rendering engine is deficient to the point that it qualifies as a bug.

And there we are just going to have to disagree. It is a deliberate implementation choice, it is not a bug.

I might quibble with the wording, but that’s as close to the textbook example of a bug as I’ve ever seen:

And until Jon can demonstrates that the RMSDK comes with a monospace font that Kobo didn't include and every other RMSDK user did, then I will continue to disagree.