Questions not linked ... comments?

Question

This question appears routinely and askers are usually given the work around ...click on the profile .... and/or the suggestion to use any browser other that Internet Explorer.

Stadt asked it again yesterday, accepted an answer and moved on but it still bugs me.

Can anyone confirm, deny or clarify the following conclusion?

Taking into account Pesta's research, Ron's observation and my tweeking of some of the questions that trigged the conversation ... how does this sound:

The questions without a link result when quotation marks are used in the asker's first line of the question (Not the title, the question itself) and the resulting syntax error is not auto-corrected by either the server or the viewer's browser.

Obviously, the question is there. It can be seen by everyone. The question has a link, if not on the question as listed in the Answers page, at least on the asker's Profile page.

From a user's standpoint, since the link is there, using a browser that can interpret it correctly is choice A, and linking through the profile is choice B.

From a programmer's standpoint, removing the duplicate quotation marks would be useful.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks. - pesta, Oct 2, 2010

Incidentally, the link's 'class' attribute is lost in the syntax mess - that explains why the font of the broken link looks different. - pesta, Oct 2, 2010

I reported this issue about 2 hrs ago to the site's Feedback message page, in case they don't know about this or missed reading these threads. - pesta, Oct 2, 2010

Answer 1

I hate to defend Microsoft here, but it's not their fault. SpanishDict is a complex and dynamic application (kudos! to the team). The HTML file generated for browsers to consume are constructed by a server computer using information from a database, including all the answers, responses, comments, etc. that we users enter. The formatting of the HTML must follow strict rules of grammar, which need to be anticipated by the logic used in the server application (is anyone still awake after this?).

In short, if our message text contains characters used by the HTML grammar, and the server logic is missing special translation to keep those characters from breaking the HTML grammar rules, then bad things happen. It just happens that some browsers have robust logic which tries to figure out what that HTML was supposed to mean, and sometimes even that logic fails (like with IE, and sometimes others).

It's only M S's fault in that I E is not very robust. It is also not fully HTML-compliant. I know I have to write my web sites to avoid the holes in I E. - KevinB, Oct 2, 2010

Answer 2

That appears to be what's causing it. Great detective work. I just fired up IE (man, how I hate that piece of junk) and the very first question wasn't linked. So I went through the user's profile, removed the quotes from the first line of the question, and voila, it linked in IE.

I propose you send Microsoft an e-mail telling them to fix their d*mn code. Sorry. Professional programming jargon.

I cannot figure out how Bill Gates got to be so rich when 1) he stole his idea from Apple and 2) his products don't work so well - JoyceM, Oct 2, 2010

Good timing and common sense. I B M was designing the original P C and asked Gates and Gary Amdahl (C P / M) to write an operating system. Amdahl was too busy playing golf to meet with I B M. Gates wasn't. The rest is history. - KevinB, Oct 2, 2010

Actually, as much as I complain about Microsoft, most of their stuff is years ahead of the competition. They are the gold standard for programming languages. Windows 7 is a huge improvement in operating systems, too. - KevinB, Oct 2, 2010

It's simple - combination of good marketing and lazy masses of people. It's sad, really. - ticho, Oct 2, 2010

Oh, and do remember that Apple stole the idea from Xerox. Xerox invented the graphical user interface, as well as this thing they called a "mouse". Jobs stole it lock, stock and barrel for the Mac. Apple didn't invent any of that. - KevinB, Oct 2, 2010

Right. It was all stolen from PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). - pesta, Oct 2, 2010