Re: ... other formats in HTML ...

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

>
> I'm not sure any of your remaining suggestions could be seriously
> intended, so I'll stop here.
>
>   - Maciej
>

Well, I'm mainly asking, because I'm not sure, what is a useful
and consistent way to specify such a language HTML -
HyperTextMarkupLanguage. 
Obviously there are very different opinions and approaches
from different people inside the working group and outside
too. And it seems to be different from the HTML4 approach.
A markup language for text is in general not much related to 
audio, video or graphical content at all, but if one starts to add 
specific elements for other contents, suddenly the choice gets
very arbitrary if the list is not complete.
Therefore as for this multimedia domain I'm looking mainly
for a consistent line in the draft, how this non trivial 
problem is solved. 
Therefore this should not be taken as suggestion. I did not
even start to suggest something. It is more an experimental 
approach to find out, how the current state was reached. 
It is my job to blow up errors or inconsistencies to a remarkable
size and you did the same with the suspicious 'smell'
element as a potential fellow for audio, video, canvas, embed -
this is a useful way to have a more unconstrained, distant view 
on such 'naming and functionality and domain specific problems'
more like current interested readers of the draft have, not
involved in technical details.

And from previous argumentations I already got a good 
impression about 'design principles', consistency and usability 
of HTML5 for interested authors and about the answers 
readers of the draft will get, when there is an official call for 
comments on a future draft ;o)

Such a draft is somehow a playground for draft authors, editors,
readers and the interested community. Discussion is already
a test on usability - readers of the draft obviously have their
own use cases and needs in mind and their own knowledge 
background and therefore might get different ideas or might 
see different problems or inconsistencies as programmers or 
promoters or authors of the draft. That is no reason to get 
excited.
This will not help to develop something usable for everyone, 
who wants to use HTML in the future. 
Writing texts is some combination of art and logics and such
technical drafts are no exception. 
And ok, typically people discuss more issues, they do not understand
or they do not like, therefore one might get the wrong impression that 
they think, the complete work is nonsense. For me, this is not true, 
I appreciate the big efforts to improve (X)HTML - and large parts
are already a good approach. And for the next 10 or 20 years HTML
it is worth to discuss how to do it very good, because so many 
people use it and even more will start to use it, if they understand
it and the general principle behind it - if there is one.

Received on Saturday, 1 December 2007 17:32:33 UTC