Re: Support Existing Content (was: Proposed Design Principles review)

At 08:08 AM 4/28/2007 -0700, Preston L. Bannister wrote:
>Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> > I renamed this principle to "Support Existing Content". Here is the new 
> text:
> >
> > SupportExistingContent: Browsers implementing the new version of HTML
> > should still be able to handle existing content. Ideally, it should be
> > possible to process web documents and applications via an HTML5
> > implementation even if they were authored against older implementations
> > and do not specifically request HTML5 processing.
>
>This re-statement is much improved over the prior, BTW.

The problem with this statement is that it is not a Language Design Principle.
It is a User Agent Design Principle. I would feel more comfortable if you
would label it as a User Agent Design Principle.

I think that a Language Design Principle could be something like the following:

SupportExistingContent: The HTML WG will document the usage of HTML
as it is practiced by popular web browers, and deployed on the web and on
intranets throughout the world. Our goal should be to facilitate understanding
of extant content, even in the face of unusual and unexpected syntax or 
position.
If any user agent is capable of an understanding an HTML construct, it would
be ideal for all user agents to be capable of that understanding.

The effect would be that HTML V5 becomes the sum of HTML V*

Received on Saturday, 28 April 2007 21:31:44 UTC