Re: Level of specification detail (Was Re: Proposal to Adopt HTML5)

On Apr 11, 2007, at 8:24 AM, Dan Connolly wrote:

>
> Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>> On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:28:36 +0200, Henrik Dvergsdal  
>> <henrik.dvergsdal@hibo.no> wrote:
>>> If we put HTML4.01 at one end of the scale and ECMA-262 at the  
>>> other, where should we place HTML5?
>>>
>>> If we go for a very high level of detail, I think it will be  
>>> useful to have a superficial, syntactically oriented author view  
>>> on the spec so that authors/developers can share the same source  
>>> without having to relate to all the algorithms.
>>>
>>> In most cases authors/developers don't need the algorithms - they  
>>> just need to validate the syntax and then check with the browsers  
>>> if things work/look ok.
>> Instead of talking about how to do the specification perhaps you  
>> should have a look at the proposal and comment on where it doesn't  
>> meet your needs. I think that would be a more constructive way of  
>> moving forward.
>
> I don't see any reason to suppress this sort of discussion of
> the proposal.
>
> Since you represent Opera and Opera supports
> it, you're not exactly neutral, either.
>
> There is a natural tension between writing the sort of precise,
> exhaustive specification that meets the needs of implementors,
> and writing for the audience of authors, who mostly need a bunch
> of examples to copy from and a bit of explanatory material.

In my opinion:

The spec itself should mainly try to address implementors of user  
agents (including browsers, search engines, data mining tools, etc),  
conformance checkers and authoring tools, since these audiences need  
a significant amount of precision.

A simpler guide for authors might be a useful addendum, and of course  
we definitely want exhaustive test cases.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Wednesday, 11 April 2007 22:01:18 UTC