Re: Design Principles

Maciej Stachowiak On 09-05-25 14.41:
>
> On May 25, 2009, at 5:29 AM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>
>> Anne van Kesteren On 09-05-24 22.37:
>>> On Sun, 24 May 2009 21:22:14 +0200, Larry Masinter 
>>> <masinter@adobe.com> wrote:
>>>> Are you asking me to critique the HTML document against
>>>> these design prinicples, the design principles themselves,
>>>> or something else?
>>>
>>> You keep alluding to problems with the design principles, but you 
>>> never actually state them. Making the issues more explicit is what I 
>>> am asking for.
>>
>> Are you alluding to problems with understanding Larry?
>>
>> No one will subscribe to reasonable principles if, in reality, they 
>> are (honestly, of course)  interpreted to legitimize things that one 
>> are opposed to, disagree with and, in fact, not found in the 
>> principles. I think Larry (and Dan also, if I understood the IRC log 
>> of the telcon correctly) has pointed to a problem with the 
>> /interpretation/ of the principles. "Pave the cow paths" has been 
>> interpreted to say "do not pave anything that perhaps isn't a cow path".
>
> Can you cite an example of anyone making that kind of argument and 
> citing the "Pave the Cowpaths" principle? The text says: "When a 
> practice is already widespread among authors, consider adopting it 
> rather than forbidding it or inventing something new."

@profile is widespread amongst authors to the extent that Dublin Core is 
widespread. It is a specified MUST for for anyone using Dublin Core to 
use @profile [1]. Interpreting the DC properties as DC properties is not 
licensed without it [2]. It is not this working group's task to to 
"inform" the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative that they don't need it. In 
fact DC has two meta data profiles and @profile is needed to tell which 
one to use. So, as far as I am concerned, this principle has so far not 
had any effect on @profile, even though it should apply.

It is not fair only time the design principles are applied is when 
someone is /citing/ them. This WG has many times been presented with 
statistics that lists how many times something is used. Where do we see 
in the principles that this is the right thing to do? When something has 
been found/claimed to not be much (correctly) used, then it has been 
used as a argument for "removing" (putting it in quotes to satisfy Anne) 
the attribute. I see this as an example of what you ask.

> I can't see how it would ever justify *not* supporting something. In 
> fact, the only time I recall hearing this kind of argument is from 
> those who think the principle is a bad one, and who claimed others 
> were incorrectly applying it in this way. It seems uncontroversial as 
> actually stated.

[1] http://dublincore.org/documents/dc-html-notes/#sect-4
[2] http://dublincore.org/documents/dc-html-notes/#sect-3
-- 
Leif Halvard Silli

Received on Monday, 25 May 2009 13:15:51 UTC