Documenting Web app assumptions, and HTML

On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 10:17 PM, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc> wrote:
> As a direct consequence of this, as long as something works
> consistently in a few browsers, it's likely that developers will
> become dependent on it. So to use the example used here, if one
> browser load all the images before firing the 'load' event, and keep
> all the image data around for synchronous access, it's likely that
> sites will come to depend on it, no matter if the spec doesn't have
> this as a requirement, or even if the spec explicitly says that it's
> undefined.

Personally, I agree that this behaviour amoungst authors is prevalent
and unavoidable, and I completely understand the desktop browser
vendors' need to maintain this legacy behaviour.  I applaud them for
working towards trying to make this behaviour more consistent between
competing browsers too; I believe that is in the best interest of the
Web.

At the same time though (you knew that was coming 8-), as I've stated
in slightly different ways several times before here, I think those
vendors are doing a great disservice to the Web by baking these
assumptions into a specification for the HTML language.  HTML is a
language which has utility far beyond the reaches of the desktop
browser (or even mobile browsers and search engines, for that matter)
where many/most of those assumptions simply don't apply.

I neither expect nor desire to rehash the same old arguments along
these lines.  I just wanted this message to make the connection
between this line of discussion and my position on what the HTML 5
specification should and shouldn't contain.

Mark.

Received on Thursday, 4 June 2009 04:43:09 UTC