- From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Date: Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:17:43 -0800
- To: "Scheppe, Kai-Dietrich" <k.scheppe@telekom.de>
- Cc: HTMLWG WG <public-html@w3.org>
On Jan 5, 2010, at 1:03 AM, Scheppe, Kai-Dietrich wrote: > Hi, > > I have a question to the group. > > Browser manufacturers have already begun implementing parts of the > HTML > 5 specification, while this document is far from ready. > In several threads I have noticed comments pointing out that browsers > have already created facts and that discussion at hand therefore is a > moot point. > > I find it very disturbing that arguments in discussions are being met > with such statements. > The spec does not get any better by turning off the brain just because > some browser already did something with a half baked recommendation. > > Am I alone with this assessement or would it be better to focus on the > specification irrespective of who did what when? I think the existence of one or more implementations is not necessarily the end of the story; certainly it does not render further discussions moot. But I do think it should be given significant weight for the following reasons: 1) Implementing a feature in a prerelease browser or even more so a production browser can demonstrate that it is practically implementable (or flush out implementability issues at an early stage.) An implemented feature has more evidence of implementabiity than a newly invented alternative. 2) Implementing a feature in a prerelease browser tends to identify all sorts of problems that merely reviewing the spec does not. Often ambiguities, contradictions and design flaws are found at this stage. Implementors also tend to do testing and think about how authors would use the feature, so they can give additional feedback from the authoring point of view. Thus, a feature that has had the level of scrutiny that only implementation can bring is likely to be more refined. 3) Features that exist in browsers can get testing and valuable feedback from content authors - a feature that has been implemented for a while and through several rounds of feedback is likely to be more solid. 4) Once browsers ship, content may begin to rely on non-standard or pre-standard features. At some point, incompatible changes risk an unacceptable level of breakage. This is especially so when the feature is around for a while, and implemented in multiple browsers, particularly high market-share ones. For these reasons, I believe we should give due consideration to existing implementations, existing deployed content, and what we have learned from those experiences. Furthermore, we're probably going to have to significantly reduce the rate of change well before REC. Once the spec is in CR, the W3C is calling for implementations, and will require multiple interoperable implementations to advance to the next stage. After that point it would not be reasonable to treat any feature as if it could be redesigned from scratch, other than cases where we find insurmountable problems that require an incompatible change. Regards, Maciej
Received on Tuesday, 5 January 2010 09:18:17 UTC