Re: ACTION-78: Suggestion text for 1.5.4

Ian Hickson wrote:
> The HTML5 effort started with two main foci: defining the existing 
> language in far more detail than before, for various reasons, and 
> extending the language to better support Web applications, since that is 
> one of the directions the Web is going in and is one of the areas least 
> well served by HTML so far.
> 
> This puts HTML in direct competition with other technologies intended for 
> applications deployed over the Web, in particular Flash and Silverlight. 
> People often ask about what technology they should use to develop their 
> applications. I think we do ourselves a disservice if we ignore this and 
> don't include this section.

The problem with the current text is that it doesn't really describe the 
relationship with the technologies, but rather touts the benefits of 
open standards-based solutions over proprietary alternatives.

Comparing it with the sections describing the relationship to HTML4, 
XHTML 1.x and 2, and XForms, those sections actually describe the 
relationship of this spec to those.  i.e. The XHTML2 and XForms section 
compares and contrasts the use cases covered by XHTML2/XForms with those 
of HTML5.  Similarly, the XHTML 1.x compares the vocabulary and 
describes how the XHTML Modularisation approach differs from the HTML5 
approach.

The section describing the relationship to proprietary languages would 
be much more useful if it instead described an actual relationship.  For 
instance, it could mention that HTML includes mechanisms for embedding 
such content within a page, and that it also contains many features that 
can compete with the features provided by those technologies, such as 
improved forms, multimedia and scripting abilities.

However, I don't think it's necessary for this spec to make claims about 
the costs associated with using proprietary technologies or point out 
the problems with vendor lock-in, as the current text does.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

Received on Monday, 19 January 2009 13:37:20 UTC