Re: Neutrality in "HTML 5 differences from HTML 4"

Robert Burns wrote:
>>>> Correct, they could. However, it seems that when the W3C does 
>>>> something it gets much wider exposure. For instance, the above wiki 
>>>> page appeared on maybe a single blog while the editor draft I wrote 
>>>> appeared on hundreds. Having more exposure is very important I think.
>>>
>>> Except premature exposure can be a very bad thing. We're not ready yet.

The cat's out of the bag though. It has *already* been widely circulated. So far 
the sky has not fallen.

>>
>> If you are concerned about public perception, why would you prefer the 
>> appearance that in order to find out what is going on, people should 
>> go see the WHATWG stuff instead of the W3C stuff?
> 
> I am concerned about perception of W3C and the work of this WG.

I am concerned that this working group may quickly gain a reputation for being 
dysfunctional if we are not able to produce any deliverables. If publishing a 
simple factual precis of the differences between HTML4 and the current HTML 5 
draft is this hard, I cannot imagine the working group will ever agree on 
something substantial like publishing an actual spec.

> Also as has already been highlighted by many members, it is not quite 
> sufficient in that it doesn't help us understand how the 
> use-case/problem/solution methodology has been applied in the prior work 
> on the draft.

That's a different problem that does not have to solved in the same document. It 
is also, IMHO, something that is rather hard to summarise. One can certainly go 
back and write justifications for anything that is currently in the spec but it 
would not tell you how decisions were actually reached; you would need to 
examine sources like the WHATWG email archives, the IRC logs, and so on, to 
reconstruct that information.


-- 
"Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?"
  -- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Received on Tuesday, 3 July 2007 10:20:47 UTC