Re: biased surveys and other tricks

On Jan 28, 2009, at 21:40, Larry Masinter wrote:
> If it's not clear, I'd like to see HTML-WG produce specifications
> that are useful (as specifications to be referenced in development,
> as well as cited and used by customers) to makers of web authoring
> tools (like Adobe Dreamweaver) and back-end web site tools
> (like Adobe Cold Fusion), web site capture tools and document-to-
> HTML conversion tools (like those in Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat.com),
> collaborative authoring tools (like Adobe Buzzword), among others.
>
> The current specification seems to have been developed primarily
> for and by browser implementers as the first and foremost audience.
> While there have also been some attempts to produce additional
> aspects that also meet the needs of the rest of the community,
> the primary feedback I've gotten is that the current HTML5 spec
> is impenetrable, and that attempts at splitting out separate
> aspects would be valuable to these other communities.
>
> I'm not willing to guarantee that Mike Smith's document meets their
> needs, but the notion that we shouldn't even try goes against
> what I think I'm being asked to accomplish in HTML WG, and
> so I am arguing for its publication and development, at least
> to the point where its utility as a separate can be evaluated
> fairly.

I can see how you could get feedback from within Adobe saying that the  
"HTML 5" draft is not optimized for the implementors of the kinds of  
products Adobe has. (It isn't optimized for developing a validator,  
either, but it seems pretty obvious that optimizing it for validator  
developers wouldn't be a good use of the WG's resources.)

I don't see, however, how Mike's document is even *trying* to meet the  
needs of the developers of these tools. Dreamweaver touches upon HTML  
much more broadly than what is covered in a document that is meant for  
"producers of HTML documents who want to know what the
definition of a conformant document is". Capturing a Web site into PDF  
isn't at all in the stated scope of Mike's document. On the contrary,  
such a tool is basically a non-interactive presentation engine (i.e.  
HTML consumer) whose graphics back end writes to PDF.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Thursday, 29 January 2009 08:38:31 UTC