Re: XBL is (mostly) W3C redundant, and CSS is wrong W3C layer for semantic behavior *markup*

On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, Shelby Moore wrote:
> At 11:59 PM 1/4/2003 +0000, Ian Hickson wrote:
>> I have already replied to this twice, once in my last e-mail:
>>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Jan/0074.html
>> ...and once in the e-mail before that:
>>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Jan/0074.html
> 
> What part of "which states that specification _completely_ controls
> semantics?" do you not understand?

There is no such statement anywhere: There doesn't need to be. Unless a
specification explicitly states that it overrides the semantics of
another, then it doesn't.

Even if HTML stated that it wasn't the final word on the semantics, that
still wouldn't explain how XBL could change them.

Just because _something_ can change the semantics, doesn't mean
_everything_ can.


>> ...and you _still_ haven't replied to the numerous arguments I made in
>> the e-mail before _that_:
>>
>>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Jan/0054.html
>>
>> ...that were unrelated to semantics but covered the various other
>> technical issues you brought up.
> 
> Until we resolve the fundamental issue of whether "specification
> _completely_ controls semantics", then the other details are just
> obfuscating the fundamental disagreement.

There are multiple fundamental disagreements, those that I mentioned in
that post are unrelated to semantics.


>>> 3. XBL can most certainly change the implementation of HTML tags to
>>> some thing which disagrees with specification
>>
>> How? You have yet to explain _how_ it can. Please could you give us
>> some sample XBL which changes the meaning of an element?
> 
> This has been explained several times in this thread.  I will summarize.

I take it some sample XBL (as requested) is out of the question?


> XBL can bind new content at an existing or new tag using new CSS
> syntax "bind".

It can insert content that is only accessed by the binding's script and
styles. It can't modify the original DOM. (Note that XSLT can, making this
problem real for XSLT.)


> This content can augment or completely replace the normal
> implementation of the tag. Since this content can be any content
> (markup, scripting, events, style etc), then it can do a infinite
> range of implementations.  Due to the nature of infinity, some of
> those implementations will violate the HTML 4.01 spec.

But the implementation has nothing to do with its semantics; it's just a
presentational aspect.

An example of how your argument would mean _CSS_ violates the HTML rules
is the following rule:

   p:empty { border: solid blue; }

According to HTML, empty <p> elements should be ignored. According to CSS,
the rule above should make empty <p> elements into blue bars. Does that
mean CSS violates HTML?

But even this example is not an example of an element's semantics
changing, since the empty paragraph is an empty paragraph regardless of
the CSS.

How can XBL change the semantics? Could you give us an example?

-- 
Ian Hickson                                      )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
"meow"                                          /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
http://index.hixie.ch/                         `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Saturday, 4 January 2003 20:39:33 UTC