RE: length of specifications

On Thu, 2004-08-12 at 18:00, Jim Melton wrote:
> P.S., A thought just occurred to me (which I have not yet discussed with 
> any of the other Query editors): If the W3C site were to contain both the 
> monolithic HTML file of each specification *and* a compressed file (e.g., 
> ZIP, gzip, tar, whatever) containing that monolithic HTML file, perhaps 
> everybody's needs could be addressed.

That is the approach taken by the User Agent Accessibility
Guidelines [1] as well as many other W3C specs. The UAAG
offers all of:

 * One HTML document per section
 * Single HTML file for entire spec
 * Gzipped tarball of HTML chapters
 * Zip archive of HTML chapters
 
And from the FAQ [2]:

 * Plain text version.

We used to also offer PDF and PS versions from the FAQ
but discontinued that practice since so many tools
can be used to generate PDF and PS from HTML and there
was no advantage to us doing so for a non-normative format.

I recommend an indirection to a page where non-normative
formats are linked. That page can be updated dynamically,
non-normative formats can be fixed if found to be broken,
new formats can be added, all without touching the 
normative bits published in TR space.

 - Ian

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/
[2] http://www.w3.org/2002/10/uaag10-faq/#spec-formats

-- 
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447