Re: Extensibility strategies, was: Deciding in public (Was: SVGWG SVG-in-HTML proposal)

On Mon, 4 Aug 2008, Julian Reschke wrote:
> Ian Hickson wrote:
> > > If a domain name would be sufficient. So how many people within, for
> > > instance, Google, would want the ability to mint names, and how would you
> > > coordinate them?
> > 
> > A simple registry in a revision control system, probably, or a wiki.
> 
> So the domain name would not be sufficient, right?

(with my google hat on:)

At Google we are confident in our ability to mint globally-unique class 
names, should the need arise, without requiring an explicit disambiguation 
scheme nor a public registry.

(google hat off.)


> > > I'm pretty sure it can easily happen now that new restrictions on 
> > > new TLDs have been more or less removed.
> > 
> > Could you actually give an example where this could happen? I haven't 
> > been able to find a case where an actual clash could happen, even with 
> > a totally open TLD space.
> 
> As the TLD space isn't open *yet*, it's hard to provide that example.

Pretend that the TLD space was completely open, so that you could invent 
any random TLD you wanted.

Could you actually give an example where people using different 
disambiguation schemes would somehow come up with clashing names? It seems 
like it is quite possible to design disambiguation schemes that can't be 
confused with other disambiguation schemes and therefore can't have 
clashes.


> > > That being said, clashes have occurred (what does the "title" class 
> > > name stand for?), and it's also a known problem that you get in 
> > > trouble once you want to nest information.
> > 
> > These problems are fixable without complicated disambiguation schemes.
> 
> How?

Using different classes, defining precise behaviour, etc.


> > > > If the price for that is that you have to use a syntax intended 
> > > > for this use, which is in a different _syntactic_ space than the 
> > > > language's main vocabulary, is _that_ an acceptable price?
> > >
> > > Not sure what exactly you mean by "syntactic space". 
> > > Namespace-qualified elements *are* in a different space, right?
> > 
> > I mean that instead of sticking your extension here:
> > 
> >    <xxxx>
> > 
> > ...you stick it here:
> > 
> >    <div class="xxxx">
> > 
> > It's a different syntactic space than the language's main vocabulary. 
> > Is that an acceptable price?
> 
> If it would work *reliably*, yes. I don't see how it could, as class 
> already has different semantics.

It has the exact semantics you want -- author-defined extension point.

Why would it not work reliably? Could you provide an example of something 
that would be unreliable?

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

Received on Monday, 4 August 2008 21:51:11 UTC