Re: An HTML language specification vs. a browser specification

On Nov 14, 2008, at 4:35 PM, Robert J Burns wrote:

>
>>> The parsing algorithm and the HTML vocabulary parts of the spec  
>>> suffer because we don't have spec editors who sufficiently  
>>> understand those parts.
>>
>> Uh...  We have spec editors who understand the parsing algorithm  
>> far better than anyone else I can think of, since they've spent a  
>> good bit of time studying how browsers actually parse HTML.  So I  
>> don't know where the "don't have spec editors who sufficiently  
>> understand those parts" meme comes from.
>
> From many months of discussing these topics.

Ian Hickson is one of the world's top experts on HTML parsing. In  
addition to this, he has had direct input from other HTML parsing  
experts, including those responsible for the currently shipping HTML  
parsers of various browsers. In addition, the spec is informed by  
extensive reverse engineering of browser parsing behavior, and study  
the actual source code of the parsers of at least two of the top four  
browser engines.

I don't understand how you can say expertise is lacking in this area,  
or who could plausibly be said to have more. Can you give an example  
of the kind of expert we should have involved in this area, but don't?

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Saturday, 15 November 2008 02:57:21 UTC