- From: Joshue O Connor <joshue.oconnor@cfit.ie>
- Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2011 09:28:38 +0000
- To: HTML Accessibility Task Force <public-html-a11y@w3.org>
- CC: HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
Hi y'all, I just saw Ian Hicksons post on the WHATWG Blog where the HTML 5 "technology is not versioned and instead we just have a living document that defines the technology as it evolves". What this move effectively means is that HTML (5) will be implemented in a piecemeal manner, with vendors (browser manufacturers/AT makers etc) cherry picking the parts that they want. It could be argued that this is the way it _already_ is however as a specification isn't a movable feast there is more chance for consistency and stability. This current move by the WHATWG, will mean that discussions that have been going on about how best to implement accessibility features in HTML 5 could well become redundant, or unfinished or maybe never even implemented at all. What is implemented will be dependent on where the "living specification" is at any point in time. If I am flying in a plane, I don't want to know the engineers were still not in agreement about how to design the engines after the plane has taken off. I think this will mean piecemeal implementation by vendors, with the caveat that "the spec is in flux so we can only implement the most stable parts of it" which is a perfect get out clause for a poor user experience. This is a disappointing move, and a retrograde step that could well make the fine tuning of important accessibility aspects of HTML (5) even harder. My 2 cents* Josh [1] http://blog.whatwg.org/html-is-the-new-html5
Received on Monday, 24 January 2011 09:30:23 UTC