Re: Design Principles

Anne van Kesteren On 09-05-25 16.53:
> On Mon, 25 May 2009 16:38:09 +0200, Leif Halvard Silli <lhs@malform.no> wrote:
>   
>> Personally, I even find it a naïve methodology. It might work as a  
>> "working morale" but I find it naïve to use it to convince others about  
>> anything else but your working morale. There is no method for evaluating  
>> whether that  principle has been followed or not. It is, in the end, an  
>> extremely theoretical point of view.
>>     
>
> How is it theoretical?
>   

Because, as I said, it is isn't useful to convince me about anything 
that you tell me that you have looked at it from scratch. The "from 
scratch" principle would in itself need to be defined, btw.

>> This working group has no agreement about looking at HTML as if HTML 4  
>> never existed. In fact, we disagree all the time about what weight to  
>> put on the fact that something exists in HTML 4. And in reality it is  
>> not the whether something existed or not in HTML 4 that has ended up  
>> being a problem, but whether WHATwg at some point has added or removed  
>> something to/from HTML 5 or not.
>>     
>
> There's some disagreement over a few HTML4 features. By and large I think the group is in agreement over the other features. I haven't seen anything to the contrary anyway.
>   

Whether one can use @xmlns might be described as "one of few features", 
of course ...

> The design principles do not really appear to help in these discussions, but I think in the latest iterations they have not really been used as verbatim either so they're not a huge problem either.
>   


I think the design principles should help us make decisions. If they 
don't they have failed.


>>>> I agree with Sam that we have an editor works more as an author than  
>>>> as  an editor. Is this in the design principles? Is Ian's words about  
>>>> how  this group will not ever be consensus based as long has he is  
>>>> editor in  the principles?
>>>>         
>>> That seems more about process than how HTML needs to evolve.
>>>       
>> The cow path principle is quite process oriented: "consider cow paths".
>>     
>
> It certainly requires you to do something (figuring out what authors do), but that seems a vastly different thing from how the specification is being edited.
>   

It seems a bit pointless to discuss principles if it is only up to one 
person to follow them, IMHO. And if the failing to agree on principles 
represents a danger by setting a precedence that we are unable to agree 
about anything, then the same can be said about how the editor operates.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Monday, 25 May 2009 17:48:48 UTC