- From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Date: Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:22:10 -0800
- To: David Singer <singer@apple.com>
- Cc: Shelley Powers <shelley.just@gmail.com>, HTMLWG WG <public-html@w3.org>
While this is an interesting discussion, I note the following: - This Working Group is not presently chartered to do HTML6; our charter only encompasses one new version of HTML. Thus, specific discussion of what will be in it is not entirely in scope for this list. - On the other hand, nearly every successful W3C technology has had multiple versions. It is probably a good assumption that any given W3C spec is unlikely to be the final version. Thus, in general, it is a good assumption that features we don't include in HTML5 can still be added in some future version. Regards, Maciej On Dec 4, 2009, at 9:28 AM, David Singer wrote: > I disagree with you, mostly. > > I have worked on 'kitchen sink' specifications, where they have > tried to cover everything that everyone wants in the 'specification > to end all specifications'. It results in bloat. You do have to > decide to make a cut, and deal with some questions in a future > revision, or you end up with Brooks' second-system effect <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month > >. > > What does make sense is to check; "in the next version, we think we > will want to do something like X. Have we designed the current > version so that X will be difficult?". Surprisingly, the answer to > this often results in more trimming of the current version so as to > leave a 'cleaner field' for future work. Designing on the > assumption that there will *not* be a successor is a mistake. > > I think the pragmatic attitude of the HTML5 effort, to focus designs > supported by use cases, data, experiment, and adoption, is really > helping here. > > I agree that specifications (or rather, their artefacts) live > forever; look at the effort we are now putting into historic HTML > compatibility. > > On Dec 4, 2009, at 6:52 , Shelley Powers wrote: > >> This is a general observation, based on discussions I've read in the >> IRCs, the WhatWG email list, and in this email list. I keep seeing a >> reference to HTML6 (and HTML7 and so on). >> >> Specifications are not like applications. There is no such thing as >> an old or out of date specification, if what it defined continues to >> work. >> >> Specifications for something like HTML need to be extremely stable >> because it can take years to remove past mistakes. It's not like >> popping out a new version of gimp. It's not even like popping out a >> new operating system version, such as Snow Leopard or Windows 7. It >> should be more like putting out a new version of the Internet >> Protocol: something that's fundamental to the web, generating many >> dependencies, and extremely significant expense and time when >> changed. >> >> When we make statements such as "Oh, we can put that off to HTML6", >> or >> "If this doesn't work, we'll just pull it in HTML6", what we doing, >> in >> effect, is signaling this group's failure. Either we're trying to >> include too much in the umbrella term of "HTML", including >> application >> specific material, which is very volatile; or we're not dealing with >> issues correctly, or facing problems and disconnects directly. >> >> Regardless, any mention of HTML6 in this group should be treated as >> an >> admission of failure on the part of this group. >> >> We should be looking at HTML5, as an entity that can meet the needs >> for a web page markup, and associate DOM, both now, and in the >> future. >> >> Shelley >> > > David Singer > Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc. > >
Received on Friday, 4 December 2009 19:22:44 UTC