Re: HTML interpreter vs. HTML user agent

On 5/27/09 11:49 AM, Larry Masinter wrote:
> However, there has been strong push back that the
> specification being reviewed should be applicable
> to all kinds of HTML interpreters, and not just
> HTML User Agents.
>    

Are you claiming that push back is accurate? The document is relevant to 
all HTML clients.

> There are likely important distinctions between the
> operational requirements of HTML interpreting agents
> being run by a user in order to access the information
> in the HTML page (and thus a HTML User Agent) vs.
> those being run as a service or for some other
> purpose (e.g., search engine spiders, for example).
>    

The term user agent has evolved to include all clients, since most of 
them send User-Agent headers. Even W3C documents use the term this way. 
See <http://www.w3.org/TR/cuap>, for example.

Furthermore, I don't think the technical distinction you're drawing here 
is particularly useful. Non-browser clients still need to follow the 
HTML5 document to interpret HTML, otherwise they more like toys that 
can't handle the Web. The only remotely capable html parsing library I 
have ever used as a programming language package is html5lib. Also, when 
sites need to do accurate HTML parsing on the server, they end up 
pulling in Mozilla or WebKit components.

- Rob