Re: Design Principles

Julian Reschke On 09-05-25 16.23:
> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>> ...
>> If that's true, then probably the most applicable principle would be 
>> "Support Existing Content."  But I don't think we have evidence from 
>> the above that profile is in fact used a lot. Sounds like it could 
>> be, depending on how much Dublin Core is used and whether authors 
>> using DC follow the profile requirement.
>> ...
>
> Why does it need to be used "a lot" for this design principle to apply?

Indeed. This sounds a an example of the reversal  of the "pave the cow 
paths" principle.

Btw, I agree that "Support Existing Content" is applicable. But how 
about such a thing as "Support Existing Specifications That Rely On 
Extension Features of HTML 4 and XHTML 1"?  The other unspecified 
principle, the "From Scratch" principle, really hasn't been followed 
through [or perhaps that is exactly what has happened?] so long as HTML 
5 fails to cater for those specifications.  (Ore we could say that, 
here, again, we see an example of the browser focus of the draft.)

It would eventually be up to the /Dublin Core Metadata Initiative/ to 
pave their own cow paths, as it is their specification. However, it 
seems as if they, since 2008 [but already starting in 2003], put more 
weight on using @profile, so it looks as their attempt to 'cowpath' the 
'DC' prefix was found to be the wrong path.  I think they do the right 
thing when they avoid authorizing anything without using the extension 
mechanism that HTML has. If the goal is that anyone using "text/html" 
today should upgrade to "HTML 5 - text/html" when the spec is ready, 
then it seems productive to this HTML 4/XHTML 1 feature and instead 
improve it.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Monday, 25 May 2009 17:04:07 UTC