Re: ISSUE-53: mediatypereg - suggest closing on 2009-09-03

On Aug 25, 2009, at 4:58 PM, Ian Hickson wrote:

> On Tue, 25 Aug 2009, Roy T. Fielding wrote:
>>
>> http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#the-indicated-part-of- 
>> the-document
>>
>>    If there is an a element in the DOM that has a name attribute  
>> whose
>>    value is exactly equal to fragid (not decoded fragid), then the  
>> first
>>    such element in tree order is the indicated part of the document;
>>    stop the algorithm here.
>>
>>> No mention of browsers is made in any of these conformance critiera.
>>
>> 1) I don't have a DOM (only browsers do).
>
> No, by definition, every HTML5 implementation has, or must act like it
> has, a DOM. The DOM is used in HTML5 as a model used to describe what
> implementations must do even if they don't actually expose the DOM  
> in any
> black-box testable way.

Hence my objection to how HTML5 has been defined in terms of DOM
operations, which are neither present in nor understood by the vast
majority of implementors of HTML.  I am certainly not going to change
my implementations to act like they manipulate a DOM just because
the W3C says so (let alone the WHATwg, for whom such a requirement
does make sense).

You can't have it both ways.  A language definition is applicable
to all generators and consumers, and can be supplemented by a
behavioral spec for browser conformance testing.  A behavioral spec
alone is not applicable to all generators and consumers because it
is impossible for all applications of HTML to behave the same way.
They don't have the same purpose.

The HTML4 spec is a far better definition of the language than the
current HTML5 draft, even after taking into consideration the
errors and lack of new features, solely because of the style you have
chosen for describing HTML in terms of DOM processing behavior.
If we actually defined each element and each attribute in the
way that HTML4 does *and* define its operational behavior for the DOM
then the specification would satisfy all implementations.

>> What you are saying is that I have to rely on all prior definitions
>> of HTML (that were not written in this insane browser-centric style)
>> in order to figure out the meaning of mark-up in "text/html".
>
> No, I'm saying HTML5 makes all previous versions of HTML obsolete  
> and that
> you never have to look at an older version of the language again.

When that happens, then the registered text/html template should be
changed accordingly.

>>> In that case, I completely disagree with your world view of how
>>> specifications should work.
>>
>> That much is obvious.  It does not, however, make you the ultimate
>> decider of whether an issue is valid or not, or whether the  
>> content of
>> the current draft resolves that issue.  Consensus is not found in the
>> eye of the editor.
>
> I agree. The same applies to you, also.

Closing the issue (this thread) means that we have consensus
that the issue has been resolved or will not be resolved.
I am not the one suggesting it be closed at this time.

....Roy

Received on Wednesday, 26 August 2009 00:40:31 UTC