- From: Henrik Dvergsdal <henrik.dvergsdal@hibo.no>
- Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:56:56 +0200
- To: public-html@w3.org
On 17. apr. 2007, at 11.30, Ian Hickson wrote: > working directly with the community of web developers, taking > feedback into account, iterating continuously over many years > improving the document as time passes. > We will be fixing errors in our specs for years if not decades to come > I prefer English prose over the other techniques because in my > experience > it leads to better implementations > Stability is a myth in the development of specifications as > complicated as > HTML OK. Let me take a step back and try to make sense of all this. To me HTML5 is now starting to look less like a spec/standard in the usual sense and more like a continuously evolving guide to building browsers, conformance checkers and web pages. To me, it looks like HTML5 as proposed will not define a formal language in the traditional sense. Instead it will constitute the following two things at the same time: 1. An evolving text, reflecting a multiplicity of browsers, checkers and pages. 2. A kind of disciplining glue that will restrain these entities and keep them (almost) aligned to each other. Strictly speaking, HTML will not be a formal language defined by the text in the HTML5 document. It will be a more loosely defined entity, ultimately bounded by actual implementations of browsers and checkers. If this is a correct perception, it may not break the web, but it will lead to a few changes changes and require some rethinking in other areas. Among other things, it is bound lead to some changes in the distribution of power over the web... -- Henrik
Received on Tuesday, 17 April 2007 11:57:26 UTC