- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 04:36:59 +0000 (UTC)
- To: Robert Burns <rob@robburns.com>
- Cc: Sander Tekelenburg <st@isoc.nl>, public-html@w3.org
On Mon, 2 Jul 2007, Robert Burns wrote:
> > >
> > > Actually, no -- the <video>, <audio>, and <canvas> elements all
> > > expose elaborate APIs that are specific to the kind of media to
> > > which they relate. When those elements were introduced, it was
> > > thought unwise to overload <object> with all these APIs as well as
> > > APIs for frames, plugins, images, and the like. (Part of the reason
> > > <object> is so poorly implemented is that it is so overloaded with
> > > different behaviours, a lesson that I've tried to apply to all the
> > > new features in HTML5.)
>
> I would strongly disagree with Ian's contention here. Complexity in the
> UA implementation should be dealt with through good code factoring and
> other best practice programming not through dumping the problem onto the
> authoring language. Authors are not as sophisticated as the programmers
> who do UA implementations. The complexity of implementing <object>
> should not lead us to dump that complexity on authors of HTML documents.
> The more the UA can deal with complexity, the easier it will be for
> authors and users.
It's a matter of balance. If we make the language so complicated that the
implementations are very buggy (as happened with <object>) then we've
given the problems to both implementors _and_ authors. Naturally we
shouldn't shy from making this simple for authors at the expense of
implementors, but there's no point going so far that the implementors'
problems spill into the authors' realm.
Lack of user agent interoperability ("browser bugs") is the number one
complaint from Web authors. We can reduce that problem by making things
simpler for implementors.
(In any case, for <video>, <audio>, and <canvas>, I don't think that
separating these features from <object> makes things harder for authors.
If anything, I'd say it makes them simpler.)
--
Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Tuesday, 3 July 2007 04:37:09 UTC