Re: minor copy edits needed in HTML 5 draft

On Sun, 17 Jun 2007, Mike Brown wrote:
>
> I'm surprised that after all the work put into other aspects of HTML 5, 
> someone who claims to appreciate clear, concise, formal technical 
> specifications would ask why the draft's cavalier attitude of "sometimes 
> when we say X we mean Y, except when we mean Z" matters.

Assuming you are referring to your request that the spec specifically 
refer to HTML4.01 vs HTML4.0, or XHTML 1.1 vs XHTML 1.0, could you point 
to the specific references where the vagueness causes a problem?

I totally agree that normative text should be specific, but none of the 
references to those specs are normative, so I don't understand the 
problem.


> I'm definitely not looking forward to the fight over the possible 
> interpretations and ramifications of the HTML 5 draft's intent to 
> "replace" / be "the latest version of" HTML 4.x, XHTML 1.x, and DOM 
> Level 2 HTML, all of which have a far greater scope than the HTML 5 
> draft, not to mention can't really be superseded in quite the sweeping 
> way that's implied.

Could you elaborate on how they have "far greater scope"? The intent is to 
cover everything that the earlier specs did, in far more detail. (Some of 
the features, most notably the presentational elements in HTML4, aren't 
yet in the spec, but they will be in due course.)


> Besides, the comments from a "fresh pair of eyes" looking at your spec 
> for the first time should be welcomed. Concerns, even trivial ones, 
> should be addressed in the spirit of "the fact that someone barely got 
> into reading the spec and got hung up on that issue indicates the topic 
> may need to be better explained, even if the suggested fix wasn't much 
> of an improvement."

Indeed, all feedback is welcome. I've already fixed the typo you pointed 
out, and indeed you are in the acknowledgements already.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Monday, 18 June 2007 07:42:35 UTC