Re: Why Design Principles?

Maciej Stachowiak On 09-06-03 01.30:

> Your response takes the tone of a conspiracy theory. Things like your 
> use of the word "hegemony" 

Hegemony means that one group dominates. No less or more.

> and your apparent belief that the Design 
> Principles are an elaborate plot against the profile="" attribute make 
> it hard to evaluate or respond to your feedback.

Except that, w.r.t. @profile I only spoke about the single 
principle that you suggested to replace (including the 
replacement), I actually believe you w.r.t. _your_ intention. But 
unfortunately I am not alone in having the perception that owning 
the interpretation of the principles is a hot potato.[1]

> In the past you've lumped Rob Sayre in the same "hegemony" as Ian, yet 
> Rob has stated his strong opposition to many of Ian's actions as editor, 
> and even wrote an alternate HTML5 draft that makes different decisions 
> on what features are in or out.

So I should be on the side of everyone that are against Ian?

> I can assure you that the Design Principles were not written with 
> profile="" in mind. As one of the editors, I personally do not care 
> either way about profile="", and I've certainly not made it my mission 
> in life to stamp it out. In fact, if it were up to me, I would make use 
> of profile="" conforming, if only to remove the need to argue about it 
> further.

I am glad to hear this - your support for @profile. And I have 
note that you expressed similar good things in the past, though 
not as clearly! And may be I should put more weight on expressing 
agreement as well. Even in the "Why Design Principles" there were 
some good things. I chose to speak about the things there were 
most to say about.

> I suggest you resubmit your feedback without the conspiratorial tone.

I'm sorry it came through as that. I think, in fact, that if I may 
pose myself as not belonging to the hegemony, then I am one of the 
least conspirational persons of that lot - too little, perhaps.

I have made a proposal about a new design principle to be taken 
in. I think Julian and Ian also support having it as a principle - 
and thus we perhaps have what counts as 3 independent persons.

> On Jun 2, 2009, at 3:52 PM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>> Maciej Stachowiak On 09-06-02 05.11:

>> Therefore, as a new principle to be added, I propose what Julian 
>> stated [3]:
>>
>>     Consistency with other specifications
>>
>>  Consistency with other specifications is a very  important
>>  goal and {one} that it needs extremely good reasons to give
>>  up on that.
>>
>>  In general, if another specification clearly has a bug, it
>>  should be reported to the standards body maintaining that spec.
>>  In the worst case, this is where the process ends (such as for
>>  IETF specs with an Erratum on the RFC Editor page), on the other
>>  hand that Standards Body may be revising that spec anyway.
>>
>>  [...] ignoring/overriding other specs often is a symptom of an
>>  assumption that one can do something better than those who were
>>  involved writing the "other" spec (a certain kind of "NIH*").
>>  This may be true sometimes, in which case the right thing to do
>>  is to help making that other spec better.
>>
>> *Not invented here
>>
>> Ian has already said - twice in the same letter[4] - that he 
>> "completely agree" to this principle. It would only be fair to, as 
>> proof that WHATwg is not suffering from NIH, be open for a principle 
>> that has actually not been invented there.

>> [3] http://www.w3.org/mid/4A1BB7B0.9010605@gmx.de
>> [4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009May/0410

[1] 
http://realtech.burningbird.net/web/standards/whatwgs-mine-mine-design-principle-kerfuffle
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Wednesday, 3 June 2009 01:15:23 UTC