- From: John Foliot <foliot@wats.ca>
- Date: Fri, 9 May 2008 14:31:58 -0700
- To: "'Justin James'" <j_james@mindspring.com>, "'Ian Hickson'" <ian@hixie.ch>
- Cc: "'Steven Faulkner'" <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>, <public-html@w3.org>, "'W3C WAI-XTECH'" <wai-xtech@w3.org>, <wai-liaison@w3.org>, "'Dan Connolly'" <connolly@w3.org>, "'Chris Wilson'" <Chris.Wilson@microsoft.com>, "'Michael\(tm\) Smith'" <mike@w3.org>
Justin James wrote: > Anything that cannot be machine-checked should not be in the spec. Which of course is why the "even in remote, specifically outlined circumstances @alt can be considered optional" is fundamentally flawed - it can either *always* be optional, or *never* be optional, but never *sometimes*. > There are too many automated user agents (search engines, screen > scrapers, etc.) and too many automated authoring tools (anything > generating HTML without user intervention, 99% of Web apps) out > there. If it is not verifiable by the logic that general purpose > programming languages allow, how is the programmer of such tools > going to ensure that the software generates (or properly consumes) > HTML that meets the spec? In a nutshell, a non-verifiable HTML spec > relies upon a "I know it when I see it" definition of things, which > will get us into trouble. If the user of the spec does not share the > same internal "I know it when I see it" definitions, then they will > be meeting the tech specs but not the assumed specs. Right. I can bang together a small PHP app that uploads photos to my blog and call it a "photo sharing site", and then claim dispensation just like flickr. Wrong! JF
Received on Friday, 9 May 2008 21:32:43 UTC