Re: HTML6

On Mon, 07 Jan 2013 09:42:53 +0100, Oscar Godson <oscargodson@outlook.com>  
wrote:

> I wasn't going to submit this but I've actually received quite a few  
> people saying they want me to, so I was wondering where I'd submit a  
> >proposal / concept I did? Link here: http://html6spec.com/

Hello Oscar,

I would encourage you to skip the process of writing an entire  
specification for HTML. It now takes many years, assuming you have a large  
community doing a lot of the real work. It would be more useful to focus  
on proposing specific changes (small or large) to HTML.

The normal approach in this group is to begin by identifying the problem  
you are solving, and the "customers" - for whom is it a problem, what are  
they trying to do. It is important to identify the requirements rather  
than simply proposing a single solution, since there are probably many  
possible solutions - and the value of a group is the ability for others to  
improve on, or propose alternatives to, an initial idea. It is also often  
the case that a proposed solution has an impact on other parts of the  
ecosystem, which should be carefully considered.

I suggest that changes to the syntax which don't provide new functionality  
are often going to be rejected - effectively by people deciding that they  
are not going to use them, since changing search engines, browsers,  
blogging platforms, editing software, CMS front-ends and processors,  
content pre-processors and all the other parts of the ecosystem is an  
expensive job and one that people will usually only do for some clear gain.

Specifically, there is already an element that can handle any kind of  
media in HTML. It is called object. There is another element called embed  
that could be used in a similar way. I don't think there is much call for  
yet another one.

Likewise, there is already a way to use real XML namespaces in HTML, with  
the XHTML syntax. This works today in browsers and in other software, and  
is in real-world production. There is also Web Components, which is  
designed to allow for a "simpler" less generalisable approach to  
extensibility. It seems unlikely that those who want the functionality  
these options provide would invest in a third parallel system.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
chaals@yandex-team.ru Find more at http://yandex.com