Re: Seeing the open issues

On Tue, 21 Aug 2007, Steve Faulkner wrote:
> 
> In your off (HTML WG) list response
> [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2007Aug/0024.html
> ]
> you have offered to help make a second "accessible" version of
> http://www.whatwg.org/issues/
> 
> This is I believe is misguided and somewhat disingenuous:
> 
> "[09:51] <Hixie> and frankly, i don't care if it doesn't work in IE7
> [09:51] <Hixie> that's IE7's prblem
> ...
> [09:53] <Lachy> just that IE users are complaining
> [09:53] <Hixie> that's their problem
> [09:53] <Hixie> they need a better browser"
> 
> cite: http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20070821

Note that I wrote the above comments regarding IE7 before realising that 
your needs were based on limitations of your accessibility tool rather 
than on limitations of IE.


> If it is technically feasible as you infer (in your email) to provide a 
> version of the page that can be displayed in IE why not provide it in 
> the first place rather than having to duplicate the effort in developing 
> a second version? Providing an "accessible" alternative is always a last 
> resort.

I have limited resources, I'd like to concentrate on working on the spec 
rather than working on tools to help people see how I'm working on the 
spec. I wrote this tool over a weekend, mostly for fun, to help people see 
what the issues are. It doesn't work in IE because it uses standards-based 
features that IE doesn't support. However, I have provided full 
documentation of the API used to allow it to be implemented in other 
browsers by anyone who wants to do so. I encourage you to implement an IE 
version, or find someone to volunteer to implement one for you.


> Often times arguments on the HTML WG mailing list are based on concepts 
> such as "real world" use cases. IE is a mainstream browser used by many 
> people.
>
> Another concept is that "accessibility should be built in". Reasonable 
> efforts should be made to ensure that content for the consumption of the 
> working group members is designed to be displayed without users having 
> to jump through hoops in order to be able to access it.

I went out of my way to make sure that the tool was written with 
accessibility in mind, such that any compliant aural browser or any screen 
reader with a compliant browser would be more than able to work well with 
this tool; and I provided detailed documentation to help someone with a 
non-compliant tool to write their own version. I'm sorry that your 
browsers are so expensive yet so limited, really I am.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 21 August 2007 16:57:01 UTC