Re: relevance of diverse HTML authoring practices [was: Versioning re-visited ...]

Dan Connolly wrote:

 > Speaking personally, my goal is that the specification we
 > deliver is sufficient that new implementations based on it
 > will interoperate with a critical mass of the deployed content
 > on the web. Much (most?) of that content reflects
 > poor authoring practices. These practices are very much
 > relevant considerations for our design decisions.

Dan, I think you are trying to hit two nails with one hammer.

By all means let there be a specification for /browsers/ that
can handle the majority of extant content : but let that
specification not influence the design of HTML 5, which I
(for one) see as the primary task with which this group is
concerned.  To put it another way, let the specification
for HTML 5 inform the specification for browsers; but
/please/ do in any way allow the specification for browsers
to inform the specification for HTML 5.

Or to put it more simply, we must not allow the tail to wag the dog.

Philip Taylor

Received on Saturday, 23 June 2007 17:06:27 UTC