Re: Understanding the "applicable specifications" clause (was: Re: Decentralised extensibility idea (ISSUE-41))

On Jan 20, 2010, at 15:50, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:

> Henri Sivonen, Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:56:30 +0200:
>> On Jan 20, 2010, at 13:50, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>> 
>>> What most people will be interested in is what the W3 Validator 
>>> considers valid.
>> 
>> Indeed, it probably a more relevant consideration for many than what 
>> the specs say.
> 
> I for one agree with you that a validator should be a 
> development/authoring tool. 
> 
> However, with the "applicable specification" concept as the only 
> extension point,

It's not the only extension point.

> the weight of what the (W3) validator considers valid 
> will only increase in importance against the weight of the spec.

I don't see how it would increase compared to how things have been for quite some time with the W3C Validator.

> One way to make the point that "validation is not all that matters" is 
> to make it very simple to validate stuff (= easy to add extensions that 
> can be validated with "off the shelf" validators = having technical 
> extensions rather than "applicable" extensions.).
> 
> If you on purpose want to make it difficult for people to validate 
> stuff that is not part of the main spec, then you are not operating 
> with a pure development view of what validation is meant for. Instead 
> you are mixing in your perception of how (for example) I perceive 
> validators/validation.

Is that a personal "you" at me or an impersonal English "you"?

In case it is a personal "you":
Validator.nu allows its built-in features to be replaced piecewise with custom schemas. That is, you could feed Validator.nu your own RELAX NG schema and still use the built-in table integrity checker, for example. The particular validator extension mechanisms supported by Validator.nu at a given point in time aren't (and, in my opinion shouldn't be) coupled with the spec extension mechanisms of the HTML5 spec.

>>> b) if you do go for an 
>>> extension, make sure that it can be W3 validated = best thing is to 
>>> submit the spec to the W3.
>> 
>> That probably helps. However, it seems that it's neither necessary 
>> (Atom validation is offered)
> 
> <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
> 
> I've read the Atom history. But Atom has both a W3 namespace and is 
> based on XML.

The W3C also provides RSS 2.0 validation, and RSS 2.0 doesn't even have a w3.org namespace URL. RSS 2.0 isn't in any sense a W3C spec.

> That way it can also be be validated as part of an XHTML 
> document, I suppose.

I meant http://validator.w3.org/feed/. I didn't mean Atom inside XHTML (which would be weird).

>> nor sufficient (XForms validation is not  offered).
> 
> It is also a significantly newer recommendation.

XForms 1.0 became a REC in 2003. The development of Atom started in 2003.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:24:41 UTC