- From: Noah Mendelsohn <nrm@arcanedomain.com>
- Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 14:15:43 -0500
- To: Mukul Gandhi <gandhi.mukul@gmail.com>
- CC: Alex Russell <slightlyoff@google.com>, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi>, Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz>, public-html WG <public-html@w3.org>, Paul Cotton <Paul.Cotton@microsoft.com>, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>, "www-tag@w3.org List" <www-tag@w3.org>, Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>, "Michael[tm] Smith" <mike@w3.org>, Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>
On 2/17/2013 10:17 AM, Mukul Gandhi wrote: > But I do feel, having a polyglot document structure improves > interoperability of information represented by them I'm not quite sure, but I think Mukul is trying to make a point that I think is interesting: if a specification like polyglot were available and widely known, then the chances might go up that whoever sourced Mukul's document would in fact have used it. Part of what standards do is to encourage people to do in standard ways things they might not have bothered to do cleanly otherwise. For example, many people who use XML do so because the standard is there, the tools are there etc.; it's pretty easy now to go to someone who is contemplating an ad-hoc format and say: "how about JSON, or XML or HTML" as appropriate. There's a circularity: to some extent it's hard to tell how valuable things like polyglot can be until their out there, publicized, and supported by tools. (I'm NOT making the case that this argument justifies doing polyglot...just noting the circularity, which can be used to justify either conclusion IMO). Noah
Received on Sunday, 17 February 2013 19:16:12 UTC