Re: handling fallback content for still images

Karl Dubost wrote:
>> The part of the spec that gives the content models of elements really 
>> needs to get some warnings for readers who read the spec piecemeal. I 
>> am not in any way defending the situation that the spec doesn't warn 
>> you about this in that part of the spec.
> 
> I said it a few times, there will be high benefits and less confusion to 
> split the spec in two. Not many authors want to know the cooking inside 
> the browser. The two specs can interlink. A warning will not be enough 
> IMHO.

I don't think that is the right thing to do; it has a high opportunity cost in 
terms of the time the editors would have to devote to it, and introduces more 
scope for inconsistencies between the two documents since there is material that 
would be relevant, and hence reproduced, in both halves - there is little point 
in splitting the document if the two halves cannot be understood without 
extensive reference to the other.

On the other hand, I think that there is a unfilled niche; a detailed "HTML 
Guide for Authors". I envision that this would be a non-normative document 
written at roughly the level of the HTML 4 spec (i.e. more comprehensive than a 
typical tutorial; aimed more at the people who write tutorials). It could be 
edited by members of the WG other than the editors of the existing spec and, 
because it would be aimed at understanding rather than precise specification, it 
would be written in a more accessible style than the spec itself. Since writing 
the document would require detailed reading of the spec, its construction would 
necessarily involve detailed review, and hence improvement, of the spec. The 
cost in time of producing such a document would be smaller than that of 
splitting the spec since work on the two documents could occur in parallel. It 
would also allow more members to contribute directly to a deliverable which I 
know some people, including Karl, have advocated in the past.

-- 
"Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?"
  -- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Received on Tuesday, 10 July 2007 11:11:57 UTC