- From: Karl Dubost <karl@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 12:18:19 -0400
- To: L.David Baron <dbaron@dbaron.org>
- Cc: W3C Validator <www-validator@w3.org>, "'public-evangelist@w3.org' w3. org" <public-evangelist@w3.org>
David,
I'm not sure the question is relevant to www-validator@w3.org, let me
redirect it to public-evangelist@w3.org
Le 2005-09-21 à 02:39, L. David Baron a écrit :
> The bigger question here, though, is whether Web standards are being
> designed to support the ability to view documents created today
> decades
> or centuries from now. Given the rapid production of new
> standards, the
> low level of concern for making them all work together, the versioning
> strategies fashionable these days, and the insufficient depth of
> public
> test suite coverage, I think the answer is currently no.
My take on it
I understand and value the fact to have a Web standard which evolves
smoothly and by steps. Though it's not always desirable or
practically feasible. I guess it's a question of balance. I think one
of the major point is that
it is documented
The fact to have a specification which describe the language as it
was 10 years ago is important, because it gives the possibility to
write a tool that will help you to move forward.
I see the versioning as a way to help to identify which
specifications I have to use to understand this document. The fact
that there is a player or not for this document is another point.
It's a bit the same for many things Audio Tape, VHS, movie formats.
The book, paper, etc seems to be for now the way to encode
information which has last for a very long time. But again I would
have to moderate this comment, because manuscripts from 300 years ago
are barely readable when handwritten.
Test Suite Coverage, at least at W3C, it has improved tremendously in
the last 4 years. It was not part of the culture at the beginning, it
is now. Look at the Matrix for example.
http://www.w3.org/QA/TheMatrix
If you want I could extract the list of all TS.
So I see a lot of improvements.
--
Karl Dubost - http://www.w3.org/People/karl/
W3C Conformance Manager
*** Be Strict To Be Cool ***
Received on Wednesday, 21 September 2005 16:19:39 UTC