Re: SVG in text/html

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009, Jeff Schiller wrote:
> On 4/26/09, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
> > On Wed, 25 Mar 2009, Jeff Schiller wrote:
> > >
> > > Can you please change to
> > >
> > > "user agents are strongly encouraged ..."
> >
> > What difference would the word "strongly" make?
> 
> Since you obviously understand the word 'strongly' and do not need a 
> lesson on what an adverb does, can you clarify the reason you do not 
> want to strengthen the language of this paragraph in some way?

The spec uses the phrase "user agents are encouraged" many times, but it's 
not clear why in comparison to those, this one should be "strongly" 
encouraged. Why is it more important that user agents provide a UI that 
allows extraction of XML snippets from an HTML document than it is that 
user agents offer to the user the ability to abort scripts that are taking 
all the computer's CPU?


> On 4/26/09, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
> >
> > > Toolchains do not change over night, companies do not always buy the 
> > > latest version of tools the day they come out.
> >
> > Your argument implies that it is asserted that SVG-in-HTML will 
> > achieve significant deployment footprint overnight also, but that is 
> > highly unlikely. It is far more likely that it would take years, and 
> > it is very likely that people who use this feature will in fact be 
> > exactly the kind of people who obtain toolchains that support 
> > SVG-in-text/html.
> 
> Can you please clarify why you believe this?  If Mozilla releases a 
> browser next year that supports SVG-in-text/html that will be (roughly) 
> 20% of all web browser users on the planet that can suddenly use the 
> feature.  That is a 'significant deployment footprint' in my book.

<canvas> is deployed far more than that already, but doesn't have much 
adoption yet. The same applies to many other features (like, say, XHTML). 
Adoption takes a long time, as it is gated more on the adoption rate by 
the slowest users (those today still using IE6) than by the fastest ones.

I'm sure there would be plenty of time for the tool users to migrate to 
versions that support this feature.


> Can you further clarify why you expect people who want to edit vector 
> images they find inline with their HTML will know to seek out toolchains 
> that support SVG-in-text/html?

Well if they try using other tools, they'll either find it works fine, in 
which case there's no problem, or they'll find their tool complains about 
some syntax error, in which case they'll seek out a solution to their 
problem, which in this case is SVG-in-text/html support.


> Here's the scenario I'm thinking about: Someone sees a picture they like 
> on a web page, view source, see it is inline SVG and think "Hey, I have 
> an editor for SVG already installed!".  They copy/paste the SVG into a 
> text file and open it up in Inkscape that they've had setup for a couple 
> years and wonder why it doesn't work.  They won't automatically think 
> they need to install a new tool for that (and why should they?  It's 
> 'SVG' after all...

No, but when they go to a forum and describe what they did, someone will 
tell them what's up.


> On 4/26/09, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
> > > You may argue that we don't need to consider SVG-in-HTML as related 
> > > to XML in any way, but if any author wants to explore SVG they will 
> > > be referring to the SVG specification which very clearly describes 
> > > SVG as an XML dialect.
> >
> > I think it's unlikely that such an author will be reading 
> > specifications.
> 
> Ok, you think they will go to a tutorial site?  I think it's fair to say 
> that nearly every introductory tutorial written today also describes SVG 
> as a dialect of XML.

I guess we'd better start writing new tutorials!


> On 4/26/09, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
> >
> > The rules right now are really simple -- you only need quotes if your 
> > value includes spaces, quotes, or equal signs.
> 
> Simple to whom?  For instance, It's not immediately obvious to me why 
> alt=x==y shouldn't result in alt value of "x==y" (but it must be obvious 
> to people who have analyzed lots of HTML content and thought this 
> through longer than I have).

Simple to you, I guess, since you're right and alt=x==y will result in an 
"alt" attribute with the value "x==y". It's only non-conforming because we 
find this is usualy a sign that someone has made a typo.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Monday, 27 April 2009 18:36:08 UTC