Re: some thoughts on objections to publishing ""HTML 5 differences from HTML 4"

On Mon, 02 Jul 2007 19:30:59 +0200, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>  
wrote:

> On Jul 1, 2007, at 9:55 AM, Laura Carlson wrote:
>
>>
>> Publishing the differences document before coming to consensus on the
>> design principles is backward.
>>
>> No agreed upon principles, at best result in decisions (e.g.
>> dropping/adding/changing elements and attributes) without foundation.
>
> I think you may be misunderstanding the goals of the differences  
> document. This document is not a set of decisions. It's just a factual  
> description of how the current HTML5 draft differs from HTML 4.01. It  
> does not require any kind of design principles to record this factual  
> information.

Indeed. To the extent that it is accurate, it allows me (and you and  
anyone who reads english) to discover that the current draft is lacking  
longdesc, has a different model for map, and doesn't include accesskeys -  
which means that clearly we need to explain why those things are important  
to us (if they are) so the group can resolve to fix the problem.

I am all for publishing the document - and the draft itself, although I  
disagree with various parts of its current state. In particular, because  
for some people it is very difficult to review a rapidly changing draft,  
and for many people keeping up with the mailing list is impossible. I  
received a specific request along these lines from a company who is  
vitally interested in the future of HTML but doesn't have the  
english-language capacity of most of the people who actually write to this  
list regularly.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
   Charles McCathieNevile, Opera Software: Standards Group
   hablo español  -  je parle français  -  jeg lærer norsk
chaals@opera.com    Catch up: Speed Dial   http://opera.com

Received on Monday, 2 July 2007 22:51:04 UTC