RE: Versioning and html[5]

Lachlan Hunt [mailto:lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au] wrote:
>While it may have been true that all sites only depended on IE's
>behaviour 7 years ago, there are an increasing number of sites that are
>built with standards compliance in mind.

I absolutely agree.  My apologies if I came across sounding like I thought ALL sites were written to IE's quirks - they certainly are not.

>I can guarantee you that if
>Mozilla, Opera and Safari change some of their more standards compliant
>behaviour to match IE (particularly with CSS and DOM), many sites would
>also break.

Yup.  So you agree, then, that it's not possible to define one spec that renders all current web content.

>IE is not the only browser that sites depend on today, and
>cannot be the only browser that doesn't make any changes.

There's a huge difference between "making changes" (which we are absolutely committed to doing, as we improve our standards compliance) and "making breaking changes for current web content".

>In the interest of interoperability for the web today (assuming you have
>any interest in that, though, despite your claims to the contrary, you
>clearly don't),

Sigh.  Let us try not to be pissy, and not presume that I'm evil.

>there has to be compromises made somewhere, in *ALL*
>browsers!  IE's monopoly does not grant you an exemption from playing by
>the rules.

Never said it did.  "Compromise" doesn't have to mean "break your customers".

>But in the case of, say, IE's broken DOM, I seriously doubt that there
>are any sites that absolutely depend on the non-tree structure of IE's
>DOM in certain cases.

Not true.  <table> and <form> are still occasionally interleaved.

>The fact that other browsers are compatible with the web without having
>a broken DOM proves beyond all *reasonable doubt* that sites don't
>widely rely on a broken DOM.  If you have evidence to prove otherwise,
>please present it.  But making bogus claims based on market share and
>other fallacious arguments are not welcome.

You do not have the experience of shipping a browser to half a billion users for the last decade.  No?  Then why do you crassly expound that my claims must be "bogus", simply because you don't like them?

I'm sorry, I don't think I have the burden of "beyond all reasonable doubt", or then I'll start requiring it of you.

>Setting ultimatums about not making any changes whatsoever will not get
>us anywhere and if that's the case, we may as well all pack up and go
>home now!

I'm not the one who introduced the concept of ultimatum to this WG.  I told you, to paraphrase Captain Jack Sparrow, what a man can do and what a man can't do.  I can't break current behavior in IE.  I can make IE follow the spec under opt-in, and under new doctypes (or other standardized switches), pretty much no matter what the spec says - I have no serious vesting interest in IE's current behavior there.  I'd rather offer interoperability, despite your ignorant and rude presumption that I'm being disingenuous.

>I, and I'm sure many others too, have absolutely no interest
>in writing a spec that only defines how to handle future content,
>leaving today's content to rot.  If that's what you want, you're welcome
>to join the XHTML2 WG.  But in this group, we have real work to do.

Sigh.  It must be boring to live in a world that is so completely black or white.

-Chris

Received on Sunday, 15 April 2007 01:07:48 UTC