Editorial suggestions

This is a last call comment from Björn Höhrmann (bjoern@hoehrmann.de) on
the Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-charmod-20020430/).

Semi-structured version of the comment:

Submitted by: Björn Höhrmann (bjoern@hoehrmann.de)
Submitted on behalf of (maybe empty): 
Comment type: editorial
Chapter/section the comment applies to: Overall
The comment will be visible to: public
Comment title: Editorial suggestions
Comment:
I think the use of abbreviations like CCS, CEF, CES, etc. reduces the readability of the document. While it might be convenient to use abbreviated forms in discussions, they make the document more difficult to read, especially because these look too similar. You cannot expect that someone not familiar with the issues involved could easily understand a paragraph like

[...]
  A CES is a mapping of the code units of a CEF into well-defined
  sequences of bytes, taking into account the necessary specification of
  byte-order for multi-byte base datatypes and including in some cases
  switching schemes between the code units of multiple CESes (an example
  is ISO 2022). A CES, together with the CCSes ...
[...]

It is already quite difficult to differentiate between terms like "code point" and "code unit". Please spell these out more often. It might also be helpful to include (simplified) definitions of these terms for each occurence, like

  <span title='a mapping from a repertoire of characters to a set
               of non-negative integers'>Coded Character Set</span>

and/or make occurences links to the definitions, for example XML Schema uses constructs like

  <a href="#dt-value-space" class="termref"><span class="arrow"
  >·</span>value space<span class="arrow">·</span></a>

It would also be helpful to have a summary glossary of the terms used in the document, this would help to create the title attributes suggested above and simplifies lookup for these terms.

If there is any chance you could renumber the Cxxx codes to bring them back in order, please do. While it might be convenient not to break links and references to the document, having many of them out of order is quite confusing. The document split already breaks references, for example css3-selectors CR references the normalization part which is no longer included in the latest version of the document it references, hence it appears there is only a minimal addtional cost here.

Please make sure to publish checklists containing the conformance requirements (complete and by product) along with the CR. This would
be a great help for your audience (specification and implementation reviews in particular).

Please make Cxxx identifiers links to that section, i.e., turn e.g.

  <a id="C013" name="C013">

into

  <a id="C013" name="C013" href="#C013">

so I can copy and paste pointers to specific guidelines more easily. That these are links could be hidden through style sheets, if you think this reduces readability.


Structured version of  the comment:

<lc-comment
  visibility="public" status="pending"
  decision="pending" impact="editorial" id="LC-">
  <originator email="bjoern@hoehrmann.de"
      >Björn Höhrmann</originator>
  <represents email=""
      >-</represents>
  <charmod-section href='http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-charmod-20040225/'
    >Overall</charmod-section>
  <title>Editorial suggestions</title>
  <description>
    <comment>
      <dated-link date="2004-04-08"
         href="http://www.w3.org/mid/665966966.20040408213126@toro.w3.mag.keio.ac.jp"
        >Editorial suggestions</dated-link>
      <para>I think the use of abbreviations like CCS, CEF, CES, etc. reduces the readability of the document. While it might be convenient to use abbreviated forms in discussions, they make the document more difficult to read, especially because these look too similar. You cannot expect that someone not familiar with the issues involved could easily understand a paragraph like

[...]
  A CES is a mapping of the code units of a CEF into well-defined
  sequences of bytes, taking into account the necessary specification of
  byte-order for multi-byte base datatypes and including in some cases
  switching schemes between the code units of multiple CESes (an example
  is ISO 2022). A CES, together with the CCSes ...
[...]

It is already quite difficult to differentiate between terms like &#x22;code point&#x22; and &#x22;code unit&#x22;. Please spell these out more often. It might also be helpful to include (simplified) definitions of these terms for each occurence, like

  &#x3C;span title=&#x27;a mapping from a repertoire of characters to a set
               of non-negative integers&#x27;&#x3E;Coded Character Set&#x3C;/span&#x3E;

and/or make occurences links to the definitions, for example XML Schema uses constructs like

  &#x3C;a href=&#x22;#dt-value-space&#x22; class=&#x22;termref&#x22;&#x3E;&#x3C;span class=&#x22;arrow&#x22;
  &#x3E;·&#x3C;/span&#x3E;value space&#x3C;span class=&#x22;arrow&#x22;&#x3E;·&#x3C;/span&#x3E;&#x3C;/a&#x3E;

It would also be helpful to have a summary glossary of the terms used in the document, this would help to create the title attributes suggested above and simplifies lookup for these terms.

If there is any chance you could renumber the Cxxx codes to bring them back in order, please do. While it might be convenient not to break links and references to the document, having many of them out of order is quite confusing. The document split already breaks references, for example css3-selectors CR references the normalization part which is no longer included in the latest version of the document it references, hence it appears there is only a minimal addtional cost here.

Please make sure to publish checklists containing the conformance requirements (complete and by product) along with the CR. This would
be a great help for your audience (specification and implementation reviews in particular).

Please make Cxxx identifiers links to that section, i.e., turn e.g.

  &#x3C;a id=&#x22;C013&#x22; name=&#x22;C013&#x22;&#x3E;

into

  &#x3C;a id=&#x22;C013&#x22; name=&#x22;C013&#x22; href=&#x22;#C013&#x22;&#x3E;

so I can copy and paste pointers to specific guidelines more easily. That these are links could be hidden through style sheets, if you think this reduces readability.</para>
    </comment>
  </description>
</lc-comment>

Received on Thursday, 8 April 2004 17:31:28 UTC