Re: [XBL] "Semantics"

Hi Ian,
A couple years ago, I disliked the use of the term "semantics" in the sXBL
spec (http://www.w3.org/TR/sXBL/#introduction, paragraph 3) and today I
still dislike it in the XBL2 spec (3rd paragraph, still). I think it is too
ideologic for a W3C spec.

XBL is just some technology that performs a transformation on a source
document to produce a modified document which creates a bunch of shadow
trees based on XBL's well-defined processing model. While it is true that
the most common expected use of XBL is to control presentation and
interactive behavior, clever developers might use XBL for other purposes,
some of which might alter some of the "semantics".

It's not a big deal if this sentence remains, but it would be better either
to just remove discussion of "semantics" entirely or water it down by
rephrasing the sentence to say that the *target use case* is to preserve
the semantics of the original elements where XBL is used to define
presentation and interactive behavior for elements within a document.

Jon

Jon Ferraiolo <jferrai@us.ibm.com>
Web Architect, Emerging Technologies
IBM, Menlo Park, CA
Mobile: +1-650-926-5865



                                                                           
             Ian Hickson                                                   
             <ian@hixie.ch>                                                
             Sent by:                                                   To 
             public-appformats         Doug Schepers                       
             -request@w3.org           <doug.schepers@vectoreal.com>       
                                                                        cc 
                                       public-appformats@w3.org            
             01/08/2007 02:08                                      Subject 
             PM                        Re: [XBL] "Semantics"               
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           





On Wed, 6 Dec 2006, Doug Schepers wrote:
>
> "XBL cannot be used to give a document new semantics. The meaning of a
> document is not changed by any bindings that are associated with it,
> only its presentation and interactive behavior."
>
> It's not clear why this statement is included, what it means

It means that if I bind something to:

   <p>This is an example paragraph.</p>

...it doesn't stop being a paragraph.


> or that it's provably accurate.

It is a statement of fact: since there is no feature in XBL that changes
semantics, it is impossible for XBL to change semantics.


> Please remove it.

Why? It is very important that this point be made, IMHO. I, in fact, was
considering making a much bigger deal out of it, maybe with its own
section.


> The word "semantic" is used several times with (as far as I can tell) at
> least 2 different meanings, but is not defined.  If you must use this
> term, please define it for the purposes of this document and stick to
> that definition.

Defined.

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