Re: Author-friendlier definition of <object> (was Re: fear of "invisible metadata")

At 04:14 +1000 UTC, on 2007-06-27, Lachlan Hunt wrote:

> Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

[...]

> I don't think we need to dumb down the language in the spec for authors
> in this case.  It's a spec, not a tutorial.

Given that the spec not only defines UA conformity, but also document
conformity, it will need to be understandable by both UA and document authors.

The huge popularity of the Web has much to do with 'everybody' authoring for
it. Most of 'everybody' is not at all used to reading specs. So they need
tutorials.

But history has shown that most web publishing tutorials suck completely;
strongly encourage web publishers to produce invalid documents. That tels us
that the specs up to now have been to hard to understand for tutorial
writers. A more easily understandable spec is likely to improve the quality
of tutorials.

The same logic applies to authoring tools. The developers of those are
basically HTML authors too. The harder they find it to understand the spec,
the worse the output of those programs will be. One author making mistakes
affects one or a few web sites. One authoring tool making mistakes affects
*many* web sites.

Btw, I don't know what status the current Design Principles document has, but
it seems to me that the Priority of Constituencies applies:
<http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ProposedDesignPrinciples#head-97abe59da6732ca0ab8a6d9d863b100bf1e51266>

[...]

>> Does "browsing context" truly mean something else than "web page"?
>
> Yes.
>
>> Is "web page" too vague for UA implementors?
>
> Yes.

Any particular reason, aside from "browsing context" having been defined and
"web page" not?

>> Does the spec already define "web page",
>
> No.

Migt it be possible to define "browsing context" and "web page" as synonymous?

>> and if so, as something else than "browsing context"? Or is it just a matter
>> of the mindset of the reader that defines which phrase is  understandabler.
>
> The term "web page" is sufficiently understood for the way it is used in
> the spec.

Understood by whom? From reading the definition of "browsing context" it
isn't clear to *me* exactly how it differs from "web page". If they are
different, maybe "web page" needs to be defined as well.


-- 
Sander Tekelenburg
The Web Repair Initiative: <http://webrepair.org/>

Received on Wednesday, 27 June 2007 11:31:59 UTC