Re: ISSUE-140 CPP -- no conformance versions

Really all that matters is the intersection of features that all major
browser support.
It could make sense therefore to define a "profile" per browser and per release.
That could even be analysed programmatically and define a least common
subset, which could then be declared as the profile of the day. Thus
you could specify as an author that your code runs according to this
profile.

Alternatively, something like http://caniuse.com/ could be used to
define a profile.

With HTML4 and stable browsers it was somewhat easy to say "my code
supports html4 across these browser versions", but with html5 and the
browsers being moving targets that becomes rather difficult.

It's somewhat of a meta-question to W3C and WHATWG and browsers really
and would be nice to have a service such as caniuse that has defined a
JSON profile for all HTML5 features and each browser with every
release provides such a JSON file.

Might be an over-engineered solution, but it could work ....

Cheers,
Silvia.

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 5:15 PM, Smylers <Smylers@stripey.com> wrote:
> Lars Gunther writes:
>
>> Another thing to consider: Getting an all green from the validator is
>> a boost of morale for young students. Simple, but I've seen it again
>> and again. Whenever I encounter a situation in the CSS validator where
>> there is a bug and the green is unavailable for the wrong reasons,
>> there may be an intellectual acceptance of the fact, but it does not
>> work as a pat on the back with the same force as getting a real
>> "green" does.
>
> Situations like this are a really good example of when authors can
> benefit by conformance not having versions.
>
> If the bug you mention is actually in the spec (rather than in a
> particular implementation of a validator) then issuing a new edition of
> the spec can fix things -- thereby suddenly making the document valid.
> But that requires the new edition of the spec to apply to the document.
>
> Consider somebody who was written a page using HTML4 features plus
> HTML5's <canvas> element (because browsers are now implementing <canvas>
> and she wishes to use it). That document does not at the moment conform
> to the most recent version of HTML published by the W3C, HTML4.01. When
> HTML5 is released, the document _will_ conform to the then current
> version of HTML.
>
> As such it will make sense to refer to it as a valid HTML document.
> Continuing to refer to it as an invalid HTML4 document doesn't achieve
> anything.
>
> Changes in conformance can occur for many reasons, including:
>
> * A new feature being added.
> * Something which authors were doing anyway being recognized as safe, so
>  now sanctioned.
> * Spec bugs being corrected, changing what is allowed to reflect what
>  the intention always ways.
> * Something which has been found to cause problems not being allowed.
>
> In a situation where an author was doing X unaware that this causes
> problems and X happens to validate and then a new edition of the HTML
> standard is issued which prohibits X, it is irritating for the author
> that her document has suddenly become invalid. But there are plenty of
> examples where the opposite will occur: a document will become valid.
> (And even in this case, it is to the author's benefit to learn what the
> problems with X are.)
>
> Cheers
>
> Smylers
> --
> http://twitter.com/Smylers2
>
>

Received on Monday, 7 February 2011 06:35:26 UTC