RE: html4 vs html5 and "superseded RECs" when there isn't a new REC

No need to split if it covers html5 currently superseding html4 despite not being final.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:chaals@opera.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 4:48 AM
>To: public-w3process@w3.org; Carr, Wayne
>Subject: Re: html4 vs html5 and "superseded RECs" when there isn't a new REC
>
>Hi Wayne,
>
>I think we are in closer agreement than we seem...
>
>On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:03:03 +0100, Carr, Wayne <wayne.carr@intel.com>
>wrote:
>
>> My original post was not issue 2 (what I was asking for was snipped out
>> in what's below).   HTML4 isn't a superseded REC because html5 isn't a
>> REC.   That was the point.  But, HTML5 is defacto the new html spec and
>> it will take a very long time to get to REC even though it is widely
>> implemented.  We should do something in the html4 REC to at least
>> point to html5.
>
>Yeah, issue 2 is meant to cover that case, the case where there is a published
>working draft but the editor's draft is more useful, and the case where a REC has
>been superseded. We could split them if you think that's worthwhile (I think the
>last of those is pretty much a no brainer if we figure out the rest, and is
>reasonably well-handled anyway).
>
>> The suggestion was to put a note in the HTML4 spec pointing to the
>> latest html5 TR WD.  (and keeping that up to date is a different issue
>> - but it's better than not indicating anything in the old and out of
>> date official REC).
>
>Yep. And my suggestion is that while that is something that could be helpful, it is
>probably insufficient for people trying to understand what they are actually
>getting. Essentially for a family like the (X)HTML specifications I think there is a
>real need for an "intro to the HTML family" that is maintained, and describes the
>status of different things.
>Something like:
>
>HTML4.01 is a REC but large parts of it are considered under-specced or even
>incorrect, HTML 3.2 and 4 are simply obsolete, XHTML 1 and 1.1 are RECs that
>are sort of complementary but based on HTML4, XHTML2 has been abandoned
>and HTML5 is the version where current work is going on and while unfinished it
>contains largely stabilised parts including important technology not described
>elsewhere, and unstable parts - see WD or Editor's Drafts according to your
>requirements
>
>(with links, info about changelogs and so on, and a pointer to or note about the
>different kinds of document, and why you shouldn't link to a dated WD in most
>cases and often don't want a 2-year contract to depend on the "latest editor's
>draft" but do want to see that for the hot news, etc.)
>
>cheers
>
>Chaals
>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:chaals@opera.com]
>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 3:05 AM
>>> To: Carr, Wayne; Marcos Caceres
>>> Cc: public-w3process@w3.org
>>> Subject: Re: html4 vs html5 and "superseded RECs" when there isn't a
>>> new REC
>>>
>>> Note - this is ISSUE-2 - if you add that string in mails about the
>>> topic they will be collected at
>>> http://www.w3.org/community/w3process/track/issues/2

>>>
>>> On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:48:35 +0100, Marcos Caceres <w3c@marcosc.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wednesday, 7 March 2012 at 10:35, Carr, Wayne wrote:
>>>>> With HTML4 we have the formal W3C Recommendation for HTML, but no
>>>>> one would want that as the basis for a UA. It has been superseded
>>>>> by HTML5.
>>>>> But, people still write that html4 is the html spec and html5 is in
>>>>> the future. Obviously, that doesn’t reflect the Web Browsers out
>>>>> there which have embraced html5. But html5 is still years away from
>>>>> going to REC.
>>>>>
>>>>> It seems in this (hopefully) unusual situation,
>>>>
>>>> Just wondering, was it not the same case with CSS 2.1 (and now with
>>>> many modules of CSS3)? And with XHR 1 and XHR level 2 also (with
>>>> neither XHR version going to REC, while XHR 1 was abandoned in
>>>> favour of just "XHR"…)
>>>
>>> Yeah, I think the situation is actually quite common.
>>>
>>>> XHR level 2 was originally published under:
>>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/XMLHttpRequest2/

>>> ...
>>>> What would be nice would be if HTML5 would dethrone the obsolete
>>>> XHTML spec from the URI (and we dropped the "5" from the spec, as
>>>> the WHATWG has done):
>>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/html/

>>>
>>> Actually, I think that is a far too simplistic approach to be useful,
>>> except to a small handful of the stakeholders. And I think removing
>>> the version token from the spec is not a helpful solution, as nice as
>>> it might feel.
>>>
>>> Having a pointer that describes the status of HTML at
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/html/ might be useful - and it might need to be
>>> more complex than "latest draft, last 'heartbeat' publication, last
>>> Recommendation".
>>> There are plenty of people who use XHTML. There are people who use
>>> HTML 4.
>>> There are people who use HTML5. And there are people who use HTML and
>>> don't actually know what they are using. If they want to look up
>>> "What is HTML" and they expect W3C (instead of Wikipedia, about.com,
>>> or their local library's CD- ROM encyclopedia of the Web) to explain
>>> it, we should think about how to provide different bookmarkable
>>> references for the different needs.
>>>
>>> (Which also feeds into the bibliographic references discussion Marcos
>>> kicked off a while ago. Did that result in any issues, actions, or
>>> conclusions?)
>>>
>>> cheers
>>>
>>> Chaals
>>>
>>> --
>>> Charles 'chaals' McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
>>>     je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg kan litt norsk
>>> http://my.opera.com/chaals       Try Opera: http://www.opera.com

>
>
>--
>Charles 'chaals' McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
>     je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg kan litt norsk
>http://my.opera.com/chaals       Try Opera: http://www.opera.com

Received on Wednesday, 7 March 2012 19:51:59 UTC