"HTML: The Markup Language" (draft attempt an "HTML producers" spec)

During our face-to-face joint meeting with the W3C TAG in
Mandelieu, a large part of our discussion with the TAG[1]
concerned the idea of producing a separate normative spec for
HTML5 that defined just the syntax, structure, and semantics of
the language for "producers" of HTML content (people/authors and
applications, such as editors and content management systems, that
produce HTML content) -- without defining related APIs nor
attempting to describe how "consumers" (such as Web browsers) of
HTML are meant to process HTML documents (and in general, omitting
any of the other parts of the current HTML5 draft that cover
browser-implementation conformance criteria).

[1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/f2f/2008-10/#tag-talk

Based in part on that feedback from the TAG, I've taken a shot at
producing a draft of what such a spec might look like. It's here:

  http://www.w3.org/html/wg/markup-spec/

As noted in the "Status of this Document" for the draft, the
document is at this point only an Editor’s Draft that I've put
together myself so that we can have something concrete to discuss.

So it as yet has no official standing within the HTML WG -- and
may never (if we decide not do it, or to replace it with another
document that takes a different approach, or whatever).

It is rough and incomplete, but I think there's enough there to at
least use as a starting point for moving the discussion forward.

So, if you have questions or comments about the draft, feel free to
post them here and/or join the weekly telcon this week[2] and next
(when I hope they'll be some interest in discussing it further).

[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-wg-announce/2008OctDec/0005.html

  http://xrl.us/time1700Z
  Tokyo 02:00+1, Amsterdam/Oslo 18:00, London/Dublin 17:00, New
  Jersey 12 noon, Kansas City 11:00, Seattle/San Francisco 09:00

  Zakim teleconference bridge
  +1.617.761.6200, +33.4.89.06.34.99, +44.117.370.6152
  code: HTML (4865)

  Supplementary IRC chat (logged)
  #html-wg on irc.w3.org port 6665 or port 80

-- 
Michael(tm) Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike/

Received on Thursday, 13 November 2008 16:39:53 UTC