- From: James Graham <jg307@cam.ac.uk>
- Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:57:39 +0000
- To: Karl Dubost <karl@w3.org>
- CC: HTML WG Public List <public-html@w3.org>
Karl Dubost wrote: > > > Le 6 déc. 2007 à 22:14, James Graham a écrit : >> One problem with putting "lies to children"[1] in such a document is >> that it can undermine trust in tools that are written to the actual spec. > > "Lie to children", aka oversimplification, is a good example of what you > are doing in the message here. It's worth noting that, as I understand the term, "lies to children" are not "oversimplifications", they are deliberate simplifications made for pedagogical reasons. They also, often, but not necessarily, a useful approximation to the "truth" even for people who understand there is more complexity. For example the "lie to children" that the universe is governed by Newton's Laws, is also a sufficient approximation for many aspects of research-level physics. >> For example consider the sequence of events: >> * An author reads the authoring guide and is led to believe that all >> tags must be closed > > "led to believe". full stop. > In my previous message, I didn't say that it was the only way to write > tags. I didn't intend to suggest you did. However it's not clear to me what the exact implications of the phrase "I'm in favor of not promoting optional end tags" are; one possible interpretation is "not mentioning optional end tags at-all in the authoring guide". I have certainly got the impression that some people would consider this omission a good thing. I was trying to explain why I see such "lies to children" *in a document produced by the W3C* as a bad thing. > Hmm not sure how to put it in simpler terms. > It can be addressed here in this section > http://dev.w3.org/html5/html-author/#conventions > > The syntax chosen in this document is a subset of all possible > requirements of HTML 5. Some elements may have optional end tags. For > the sake of clarity and teaching, we always closed elements with their > end tag. The detailed requirements for each element is given in @@HTML > 5 Specification@@ > > > I think I understand what is your point. When I read the body element > section, there is the green section, which IMHO, should not be in this > document or at least not the first thing we see. At best I would put all > the content model, tag things, etc. at the bottom of each section or in > an appendix. Well I have no problem with having a consistent notation for examples, or organizing the guide so the most useful material is most prominent. However I think all the features of the conforming language should be covered. -- "Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?" -- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Received on Thursday, 6 December 2007 17:57:54 UTC