Re: Tim BL's HTML WG announcement and WHAT WG

Le 30 oct. 2006 à 13:57, Lachlan Hunt a écrit :
> Karl Dubost wrote:
>> What will be interesting to see if they all perl, python, C, Ruby,  
>> etc. libraries will follow this model once it is defined. It would  
>> be good I guess for the new WG to gather implementation  
>> experience, not only in desktop browsers but also in all  
>> applications consuming or producing HTML.
>> Though IMHO, layout engines are just one part of it.
>
> The fact is that whatever we define must be compatible with desktop  
> browsers above everything else.

Here it's why I would like to have real international survey about  
this. Because we all say things in one way or another but we do not  
have real data to be able to discuss.

> That is what the vast majority of authors write HTML for,

I'm not sure about that. the vast majority of people are using  
softwares which produce HTML, which is slightly different. And why I  
think it is very important this time to include authoring tools  
(desktop and server side applications). Because we will end up with  
the same trouble as in
	defining something which is not necessary enforced, but with no  
mechanism to put in a improvement cycle.
Here It would be very interesting to have defined mechanism to have a  
little bit more of checking done by tools and less by humans, for  
example feedback loops between servers and clients, etc.

> it's what they test in and it's how they expect all other tools to  
> handle it.

Again we are in a strong need of stats. I'm craving for them. It is  
why I keep asking for them.
Just to give you an example how our perceptions are modified  
depending on the social context and/or country we are living in.  
Desktop browsers main tool use to access web pages, I would have said  
yes without problems when I was living in Canada and Europe. Since  
I'm in Asia, that's not the case anymore. Many people I know have a  
cellphone and use it for the Web BUT do NOT have a computer. Which  
triggers interesting questions like, you see many people looking on a  
Web page at a phone number and typing it on their numeric cellphone  
keyboard, more than just clicking the link.
	<a href="tel:+123456789">Curry House restaurant</a>

> I'm not saying that getting implementation experience from other  
> tools wouldn't be valuable, just that it's far more practical for  
> other tools to base their implementations on desktop browsers, than  
> the other way around.

I have a tendency to insist on authoring tools, parsing libraries,  
because as we do not treat them often in specifications, they tend to  
implement without using the full potential of W3C technologies.  
Making fragile one part of the ecosystem is not making the whole  
ecosystem wealthy.

But yes I agree and there will be very interesting time ahead.


-- 
Karl Dubost - http://www.w3.org/People/karl/
W3C Conformance Manager, QA Activity Lead
   QA Weblog - http://www.w3.org/QA/
      *** Be Strict To Be Cool ***

Received on Monday, 30 October 2006 05:17:07 UTC