Re: Formal definition of HTML5 (was Re: Version information)

On 16. apr. 2007, at 23.32, Ian Hickson wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Apr 2007, Henrik Dvergsdal wrote:
>>>
>>> Putting forward a formal schema causes people to claim that things
>>> that are not caught by the schema are allowed, even when this
>>> contradicts other claims in the specification.
>>
>> I don't see this as a major problem. Most competent developers  
>> will be
>> aware that this is only a partial check, especially if we warn about
>> this in text and descriptions.
>
> It is a huge problem, IMHO, because most developers aren't  
> competent by
> that definition.

First of all: I'm sorry for introducing the term "competence" into  
this discussion.

As I indicated earlier: There will always be aspects of programming  
languages (and programs) that aren't automatically checked. This is  
just a question of where to draw the line. Everyone knows that  
running a HTML document successfully through a syntax checker is no  
guarantee that your document or program is correct. This comes from  
experience - we are quite used to getting things wrong from time to  
time, even when our documents validate.

> Also, I _want_ my tools to catch as many errors as
> possible. Having the spec artificially limit what errors can be caught
> seems like an unnecessary limitation.

I cannot see how having an official schema (or an official set of  
schemas) imposes any limits on our tools.

> (And if we do have a spec schema,
> and it doesn't catch everything, you know people will claim that
> conformance checkers that catch mistakes the spec schema wouldn't  
> flag are
> buggy and are reporting bogus errors.

I don't think so. If they wonder about errors from a conformance  
checker, they will consult the spec and not the schema, especially if  
the errors are accompanied by text encouraging them to do so.

--
Henrik

Received on Tuesday, 17 April 2007 07:28:03 UTC