Re: ACTION-388: Re: [WICDMobile] Identification and [WICDFull] Identification

Hi Anne.

On 3. May 2006, at 20:40, Anne van Kesteren wrote:

> * When a new version of XHTML is issued, say XHTML 1.2, we would  
> have to update the URI to some new string.

I don't think we *have* to do this. While today, the WICD profile may  
look like a maximal feature set, this will not stay this way and it  
doesn't have to. The WICD profile would ideally even evolve into a  
least common denominator feature set. Different agents will support  
more features and newer specifications.

> UAs can't just remove the old string as content is still checking  
> for that string. That's a serious issue. Each time a new version of  
> something is introduced and a new string is issued it has to stay  
> permanently on the UA its Accept: header because otherwise content  
> that isn't updated (lots of it isn't) will break. Also given that  
> we currently only cover XHTML, SVG and CSS and likely want this to  
> grow there will be lots of updates over time making it not just a  
> 64 characters growth, but 64*n characters growth where n is a  
> pretty big number. The problem is here that current content can't  
> be future proofed. They don't know the string might change and  
> don't know how it might look otherwise. So my first argument  
> against it would that the proposal isn't forward compatible in any  
> way.

We need to educate authors, to only check for the "/wicd" string in  
the profile URI and (if really required, for content depending on  
features of a next version) to also check for a minimum date  
signature, like for "/2007/03/" instead of "/2005/12/" (doing:  
year>minY || year==minY && month>=minM).

> * As pointed out, that's not only a problem for the UA, that's also  
> an issue for content. I can currently check for WICD Full 1.0, but  
> at the moment SVGT 1.3 is released or XHTML 1.2 and eithers makes  
> some backwards incompatible changes I would like to know that as an  
> author, but I can't really...

As an author, you would like to know. OK. Using the profile date  
mechanics, described above, we could create as many profile update  
specifications as necessary.

> * It's unclear to me when UAs can add this to their Accept: header.  
> For example, no UA supports the longdesc="" attribute on the <img>  
> element in XHTML, yet we expect XHTML to be fully supported because  
> otherwise the UA would not issue use this string, right? There are  
> many tiny things that are not fully implemented which will probably  
> not be fixed anytime soon, are we going to delay WICD until 2010 so  
> we can be sure they are?

Yes, we have to talk about this. One possibility is simply trusting  
vendors. Another one is for vendors to pass a testsuite. A testsuite  
will not test everything, of course. It would probably not check for  
img/longdesc. (2010 would be a little late.)

Timur

Received on Tuesday, 9 May 2006 11:14:35 UTC