Design Principle "Priority of Constituencies", was: [whatwg] Referer header sent with <a ping>?

Ian Hickson wrote:
>>> Yes, absolutely. Indeed it's one of our principles:
>>>    
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/html-design-principles/#priority-of-constituencies
>>>
>>> Interoperability and compatibility with existing deployed servers is 
>>> orders of magnitude more important to me than pedantic compliance to 
>>> other specifications. Specifications exist to help move civilisation 
>>> forward, not to provide arbitrary restrictions on progress. When a 
>>> specification gets in the way of improving the Web, it should be 
>>> changed or displaced.
>> I think you're reading something into the design principle it doesn't 
>> say.
> 
> Well, that's what I meant when I contributed to that principle, so if it 
> doesn't convey that to you, then it should be edited to make that clearer.

OK,

so let's try to clarify this one. Does this design principle justify 
being non-compliant with base specifications, in order to somewhat 
reduce implementation complexity?

If yes, how do we measure the negative impact of adding yet another spec 
inconsistency?

BR, Julian

Received on Tuesday, 12 February 2008 11:17:33 UTC