Re: toward W3C Working Draft: design principles? spec? other? (survey)

On Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:28:31 +0200, Henrik Dvergsdal  
<henrik.dvergsdal@hibo.no> wrote:
> On 4 Jun 2007, at 14:54, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>> If you can't find rationale in the WHATWG or HTML WG mailing list  
>> archives and are wondering why the feature is in the specification (you  
>> can't think of any good reasons yourself) you ask on the mailing list  
>> what the reasons for inclusion are. (And hopefully then someone  
>> documents them on a wiki.)
>
> OK. that seems like a reasonable approach.
>
> But if no one produces convincing arguments for the feature, should it  
> still be kept in the spec. or should it be removed?

If nobody is convinced the feature should stay it will undoubtedly be  
removed. However, I think most features in the specification have some  
rationale behind it. Otherwise the editors probably would not have drafted  
them in the first place.


> Take for instance the recent discussion about the restrictions on the  
> placement of the <base> element in <head>. I have not been able to find  
> any justification for this on any mailing list (apologies if I've  
> overlooked something). And so far no one has produced any convinging  
> arguments for this other than an (as far as I can see) almost non  
> existent efficiency gain. I'm not saying that more convincing arguments,  
> use cases and research don't exist, but if they are not produced by  
> someone, shouldn't this "feature" (like any other features without  
> convincing rationales) be removed?

I kind of lost track of what exactly is being debated. Is it about the  
authoring restriction on <base>? Or still about the base= attribute  
proposal? Nobody created an issue http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ for this  
on the wiki either listing all the arguments in favor and against. There's  
probably some work to do before a descision can be made and before it's  
clear what's being proposed.


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
<http://annevankesteren.nl/>
<http://www.opera.com/>

Received on Monday, 4 June 2007 13:47:29 UTC