RE: css2.1 question

On Thu, 28 Apr 2005, Mark Moore wrote:
> 
> With all due respect, just turn on Track Changes (or use diff in a 
> pinch).

We use CVS.


> These suggested changes are as trivial as it gets.  If the WG can't 
> manage these edits successfully, what gives you any confidence they can 
> manage more substantial changes?

("They" includes me, I'm one of the CSS2.1 editors.)

I have no confidence that we can manage more substantial changes. That's 
why every change we make is proof-read. And yet errors still creep in, 
because often what one person thinks is a safe change, and what another 
person agrees is a safe change, turns out to be a wrong change.

For example, maybe when we change from uppercase to lowercase, we break a 
cross-reference in another section where the tagname is in uppercase. Or 
maybe we change the example from uppercase to lowercase but forget to 
change the associated stylesheet which is in uppercase but shown several 
paragraphs distant, thus causing the spec to be wrong.

All of these kinds of mistakes have been made in the past. All of them 
take months to be discovered, some of them maybe are still lurking. None 
of them would be caught by a "track changes" or diff tool.

I'd much rather we just remove the convention mentioned in 1.4.1 than try 
to change the convention and update dozens of examples.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Thursday, 28 April 2005 17:59:00 UTC