Re: Should we Publish a Language Specification?

Ian Hickson wrote:
 > ...
>> As an application markup language yes, as a document markup language, 
>> no.
> 
> Since HTML is an application markup language, I think it would make sense 
> for its specification to treat it as such.

It makes sense for the *set* of specifications defining it to treat it 
as such. That doesn't imply it necessarily needs to be a single spec.

>> I think the state of the web really doesn't affect that distinction, and 
>> it's still a useful distinction to have.
> 
> I disagree. Is the HTML5 spec a document or an application?

<http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080610/single-page/> appears to be 
a document to me.

> You didn't reply to my question. How do you draw the line between 
> "document" and "application"?

I've stated several times that I do agree that where to draw the line 
exactly is tricky, and that different people will have different 
preferences. That doesn't man that it doesn't make sense to draw the 
line somewhere.

Without having thought about it a lot, I would expect a document not to 
require anything that wouldn't "work" when served from the local file 
system, with scripting in the UA being disabled.

>  ...

BR, Julian

Received on Monday, 24 November 2008 11:23:08 UTC