Re: HDP: Revised "Support Existing Content" Principle

On Sep 22, 2007, at 8:12 PM, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

> At 12:50 +0300 UTC, on 2007-09-22, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>
>> [...] HTML5 does *not* aim to be backwards compatible with HTML 4  
>> (as HTML
>> 4 is specified).
>>
>> The aim to make HTML5 UAs compatible with existing
>> Web content and to make conforming HTML5 documents degrade with some
>> grace in notable existing browsers.
>
> That's yet another Principle :) But you're right, I should have said
> something like "HTML5 aims to be as backwards compatible with pre- 
> HTML5 UAs
> as possible".
>
> Then again, the first sentence if this Principle says "This  
> principle applies
> primarily to the conforming *language*." [emphasis mine]

If you really wanted to be precise in a single sencence:

"HTML5 Should Try to Make it Possible, Preferably Easy, for Conforming  
HTML5 Content to Behave Reasonably in Notable Pre-HTML5 HTML User  
Agents".

But that's way too long. Support Existing Content could similarly be  
renamed to:

"HTML5 Should Ensure That Conforming HTML5 Implementations Process  
Significant Pre-HTML5 HTML Content as Intended".

Perhaps I should include these as topic sentences, even though they  
are too long to be names for principles.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Sunday, 23 September 2007 03:27:33 UTC