Re: Proposal to Adopt HTML5

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:09:41 +0200, Henrik Dvergsdal  
<henrik.dvergsdal@hibo.no> wrote:
>> How is it useful to know the changes from HTML4? I doubt much WG  
>> members have actually read HTML4 completely. The high-level changes for  
>> people familiar with HTML4 are mentioned here (not exhaustive enough,  
>> see talk page):

So what exactly is your opinion of  
http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Changes_from_HTML4 ? What does it not offer  
that you really need?


> [...] We will be able to use more time to contribute and less to keep  
> track of the status of the standard.

To contribute effectively you need to be aware of the status of the  
specification. For instance, it doesn't make much sense to propose  
something that is already included. It would make sense to propose changes  
to that what is already included.


> Most of our practical experience is related to HTML4 and if this is to  
> be utilized, we must be able use that spec as a reference point.

That specification is a terrible reference point, as David Baron pointed  
out. I doubt you can find an implementor who'd disagree on this.


> If the document is accompanied by some kind of status info related to  
> each change, it can also be a useful tool for decision making.

As I said, we're not making changes to HTML4. HTML5 is a from scratch  
approach taking into account implementations, deployed content, etc. and  
generally specifying things in the amount of detail that is needed to  
ensure interoperable implementations.


>> In due course, however, I would expect that everyone knows the document  
>> the group will be working on. At least the parts he/she is interested  
>> in. And will follow the changes made to the document through some  
>> tracker:
>>
>>   http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker
>>   http://twitter.com/WHATWG
>
> I don't think everyone will have time for this kind of line by line  
> tracking.

Those will just read the parts of the specification they're interested in  
 from time to time whenever they want to comment on them.


>> The idea of the HTML5 proposal is to effectively replace HTML4, XHTML1  
>> and DOM2HTML with something (substantially) better. Not to update them.
>
> The charter says our mission is to "continue the evolution of HTML" that  
> we "will maintain and produce incremental revisions of the HTML  
> standard". This sounds more like revolution to me.

Why? (Note that the HTML5 proposal is backwards compatible with deployed  
content and implementations.)


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
<http://annevankesteren.nl/>
<http://www.opera.com/>

Received on Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:30:29 UTC