Design Principles

Sorry, mail hiccup; I missed the Sam/Maciej discussion of the
Design Principles next steps.

I changed the email subject line since we're talking about them
and not about the minutes. I'm sorry I didn't do that in some
previous email about Document Title.

My main problem with the current Design Principles document is
the Abstract's assertion:

" This document describes the set of guiding principles
  used by the HTML Working Group for the development of HTML5."

since several other design principles also seem to be 
in operation, and it seems that the ones that have
been applied were followed inconsistently. If we continue
to work on a document with that Abstract, I would want
the body of the document to match the actual design 
principles used.

Looking at the 11/07 ballot:

  http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/40318/wdhdp/results


some of the comments indicated that while the voter agreed
to publishing a working draft, there were open issues that
would need to be resolved in the future; I haven't scoured
the minutes or mail list to discover whether these objections
were discussed.

Removing the examples would do little to improve the
correspondence between the published Design Principles
and the ones actually used, so I would oppose such an
edit as counter-productive.

Maciej wrote:

> So, I would object to publishing a version that says the group has no  
> plans to take the document further, until and unless we have clear  
> consensus on that point.

I don't think the process allows an editor of a document
to delay meeting the heartbeat requirement.
One way or another, we need to focus on getting documents
out for which the working group has agreement, even if
it is an agreement-to-disagree.

To offer a positive suggestion which might allow us to
make progress, I suggest changing the title of the document 
to be:

"Some Design Principles Guiding HTML Development"

I suggest an Abstract/Introduction:

  "This document describes some of the Design Principles 
   used in discussions of the development of HTML5. The 
   principles offer guidance for the design of HTML in the 
   areas of compatibility, utility and interoperability.

  There was substantial agreement on most of these design
  principles, although some difference of opinions remain.
  In particular, there were some objections that some of 
  the examples unnecessarily bias support for particular 
  putative HTML 5 features or element.

  Further work on the Design Principles was deferred
  so the Working Group could focus on the contents
  of the technical work rather than continuing to
  debate the Design Principles themselves."

With such a change (or something to similar effect)
to the title/abstract, I would favor publication of
the document as a Working Group Note.

Larry
--
http://larry.masinter.net

Received on Sunday, 24 May 2009 18:34:13 UTC