Re: HTML5 Authoring Conformance Study

On Mar 22, 2010, at 16:34, Sam Ruby wrote:

> On 03/22/2010 09:51 AM, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>> On Mar 22, 2010, at 15:28, Sam Ruby wrote:
>> 
>>> On 03/22/2010 05:11 AM, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>>>> "Sam Ruby"<rubys@intertwingly.net>   wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> google.com:
>>>> 
>>>> The message wasn't about lack of</body>   or</html>   but about the
>>>> lack of another end tag. (</center>? I didn't verify.) The problem
>>>> being solved is that the author may not have intended to keep the
>>>> element open all the way to EOF.
>>> 
>>> "may not have intended".  Given that this is google.com, I find it unlikely that this was unintentional.  RFC 2119:
>>> 
>>> 3. SHOULD   This word, or the adjective "RECOMMENDED", mean that there
>>>   may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a
>>>   particular item, but the full implications must be understood and
>>>   carefully weighed before choosing a different course.
>> 
>> The MUST vs. SHOULD distinction isn't useful when implementing a validator that exposes a SAX-like taxonomy of messages. Furthermore, I don't believe users would be helped by using UI terms like "MUST violation" and "SHOULD violation" instead of "error".
> 
> My position is that MUST is not appropriate.

My position is that MUST vs. SHOULD is a distraction as far as the question of what a validator reports as "error" goes.

If you call Slippery Slope, I call Red Herring.

>>>> "Maciej Stachowiak"<mjs@apple.com>   wrote:
>>>>> For what it's worth, I don't personally see the value in making
>>>>> presentational elements and attributes an error.
>>>> 
>>>> Making presentational attributes and elements errors has the value of
>>>> getting political buy-in from people who've spent a decade saying
>>>> that presentational markup is bad.
>>>> 
>>>> If we make<font>   not to be an error, some people will flip the bozo
>>>> bit on us. We can't please everyone simultaneously on the topic of
>>>> presentational markup.
>>> 
>>> Name the individual.  I'm not being facetious.
>> 
>> If you want concrete names, I believe you'd need make<font face>  conforming, publicize the change and observe the blogosphere.
>> 
>> However, if conjecture from analogy is good enough, see
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-comments/2010Feb/0024.html
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-comments/2008Aug/0005.html
>> for disapproval of less reviled elements that are perceived to be presentational (though the disapproval might not go far enough to constitute flipping the bozo bit).
> 
> Again, I don't believe that either of those rise to the level of MUST.
> 
> I also think this link is appropriate here (I think you will agree with the sentiments expressed there):
> 
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Feb/0127.html
> 
> :-)

Perhaps I should have been more clear:
I am not arguing that we should keep particular pieces of presentational markup as non-conforming. I was saying what value there is in keeping those pieces non-conforming.

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

Received on Tuesday, 23 March 2010 11:26:54 UTC