Re: WebVTT spec

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:

> On Sat, 9 Mar 2013, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
> >
> > There is the WebVTT file spec, which is used outside HTML as well, so
> > this is separate. But then there are the objects in HTML that parse
> > WebVTT. So, those need to be in some kind of "glue spec". Could be an
> > appendix to WebVTT, I guess.
>
> I think that's the wrong way to look at it. It's the same kind of
> reasoning that led to HTML4 and DOM2 HTML being separate specs, with all
> the tons of bugs that created.
>
> Conceptually, WebVTT is an abstract language, like HTML, with a defined
> data model and a defined set of rendering rules. It happens to have a
> textual serialisation, and it happens to have a DOM API. Not all
> implementations need to have both, not all users need to use both.
>
> However, they are both intimately related. We can't change one without
> changing the other. Putting them in different specs, or making one a
> second-class citizen, will just lead to spec bugs, and that will lead to
> poor interoperability and unhappy authors.
>

I definitely don't want it to look like the DOM API is second-class. A
different document structure is probably sufficient, or some more
introductory paragraphs. WebVTTCue will be in the WebVTT spec then, right?

Silvia.