RE: Polyglot: the final thread?

> Just because the polyglot discussion awakens some of the old XML/HTML
> politics doesn't mean it's architectural. At any rate there certainly
> are more pressing topics for the TAG to apply its energies to.

If the TAG is considering withdrawing its previous request, I wanted to make sure the TAG understood the reasons why I thought specifying Polyglot was important.

Not only does it represent an enormous swath of the web (even 1% of web sites is enormous), but it is also the integrity of W3C as a responsible standards organization.

* HTML is the most important specification in the W3C.

* The HTML 4.01 recommendation was replaced by the XHTML 1.0 recommendation. It was important, as part of that effort, to describe a transition plan from HTML to XHTML, which was at least the motivation for Appendix C (which I supported in the HTML working group at the time).

* Now that the intention is to obsolete XHTML with HTML (5), it would be irresponsible of W3C to not specify a transition plan for those who (for better or worse) adopted the previous W3C recommendation.

* That is, HTML / XHTML polyglot is not some random minor transition path, it's the most important transition W3C is engaged in.

* Perhaps only 6% of web sites hage polyglot home pages (although the use cases I imagine, the polyglot pages are more internal, where content is more important than presentation.)

As for discussing this on public-html, I've submitted comments in the track

Now, perhaps the 'architectural' principle is that every new version of a specification should provide an adequate description of the deployment/transition plan from the previous recommendation. HTML/XHTML polyglot should be advanced as part of that, if only to properly obsolete XHTML Appendix C.

Larry
-- 
http://larry.masinter.net

Received on Sunday, 17 March 2013 06:45:39 UTC