Re: taking HDP seriously

Hi Gregory,

On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:40:21 +0100, Gregory J. Rosmaita  
<oedipus@hicom.net> wrote:
>> Overall, I don't think we should take these principles too strongly and
>> just see them as one of the many inputs the HTML 5 specification has. As
>> the HDP document says, these are rules of thumb.
>
> 1. why have a principles document if we shouldn't take them too  
> "strongly"

Because it informs people why certain things are the way they are. The  
document is advisory and non-normative (informative if you will), as far  
as I'm concerned. (Also as far as the decided status for this document  
goes, W3C Note.)


> and seriously?  despite your personal feelings, a statement of Design
> Principles is an essential step in getting the HTML5 draft published as a
> working group draft -- without consensus on HDP, we have no guiding
> principles, but are left in the morass of competing philosophies,
> quasi-religious fanaticism, and talking-by and around one another that
> has plagued and retarded the work of the HTML WG so far...

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say with this I'm afraid.


> 2. if the principles document isn't a high priority for you, anne, why
> not let someone else edit the document?

Do you have a volunteer in mind? The sole reason I made several edits to  
the document this morning was because Maciej didn't have the bandwidth. As  
I said before, I expected not to do any work on it again.


> 3. it has been repeatedly pointed out that the term "rules of thumb"
> carries unnecessary baggage, and should not be used in the HDP document

Can you provide some pointers for that?


> 4. if the document fails to be issued as an updated editors draft before
> the end of the week, i propose that the issue of the HDP editorship be
> revisited, as the maintainers of that document have not only shown a
> disinclination to listen to and seriously consider feedback from the WG,
> but have shown no sense of urgency in updating the document and entering
> into a dialog with those who take the HDP document seriously...

Have you even looked at the document? It has been revised. I did that this  
morning. Also, see my statements earlier about volunteers and bandwidth.


> although you have since posted that you changed the HDP draft to reflect
> the conversation on the issue at the 1 november 2007 teleconference, i
> am still troubled by the overall approach to the document as articulated
> in your response to steven faulkner

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I actually worked with Steven, Henri,  
Lachlan, Philip, Stephen, and Dan on IRC this morning (Amsterdam time) and  
made several edits as a result. There's at least one e-mail to the mailing  
list that summarizes that effort. You can have a look at the result for  
yourself:

   http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/principles/


> moreover, i find the mention of accessibility in the draft completely
> pro forma and essentially meaningless -- what happened to the request  
> that markup explicitly introduced for accessibility,  
> internationalization and
> device independence continue to be supported?

Didn't Henri already explain to you that that is not a design principle?  
This is not a requirements document on the next version of HTML, it simply  
explains some of the design rationale.


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

Received on Friday, 2 November 2007 19:13:04 UTC