Re: [XHR] Dependencies in XHR

Hi, Anne-

Anne van Kesteren wrote (on 5/27/08 6:24 PM):
> On Tue, 27 May 2008 18:59:38 +0200, Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org> wrote:
>> It seems that there are multiple dependencies upon HTML 5.0 in the XHR 
>> specification.  As Team Contact, I would like to caution against this 
>> approach, as the HTML 5.0 specification is a long time from being 
>> stable, and this hinders implementation (particularly for vendors who 
>> sell their browsers, and must therefore market them).
> 
> Vendors have actually requested this. The problem is summarized here:
> 
>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapi/2008May/0249.html

Well... that's not quite a normative reference. :)

Could you please point to a specific request from a vendor requesting 
that, rather than to your own email stating the claim?


>> If possible, I would like to identify all dependencies and see if we 
>> can remove them, or move them to a smaller, more manageable 
>> deliverable. Anne (the editor) has helpfully marked these in the spec, 
>> which I applaud as excellent speccing best practice.
>>
>> "The terms origin and event handler DOM attribute are defined by the 
>> HTML 5 specification."
>>
>> I believe that "origin" can be defined in the Window Object 
>> specification, one of this WG's explicit deliverables.
> 
> In theory it could, yes. Until someone has done that it seems better for 
> implementations to reference HTML5 as that has a better definition at 
> the moment.

I'm not convinced that it's better, since this is an LC draft.  That 
means the WG thinks it's done, and thus that dependency will persist.


>> We have discussed adding consideration for "event handler DOM 
>> attribute" in the DOM3 Events spec, such that a host language can 
>> define what that means in its context
> 
> Again, HTML5 currently has a better definition.

Okay, I'll work on that.


>> "Objects implementing the Window interface must provide an 
>> XMLHttpRequest()  constructor."
>>
>> Again, see Window Object spec.
> 
> The Window Object specification is not being maintained.

True.  Maybe we need to reprioritize, then.

Hey, Browser Implementors!  Anyone got an editor to spare?


>> "If there is a Content-Type header which contains a text/html MIME 
>> type follow the rules set forth in the HTML 5 specification to 
>> determine the character encoding. Let charset be the determined 
>> character encoding."
>>
>> This is not, strictly speaking, a dependency.  It is a matter of each 
>> host language defining its own value for charset.  Am I missing 
>> something here?
> 
> It's about determining the character encoding out of a stream of bytes.

Sure.  Is there some reason this can't be made generic and left to the 
host language to define?


>> I know that everything in the spec is normative unless marked 
>> otherwise, but I just wanted to make sure that none of the references 
>> are informative?
> 
> There is one non-normative reference to HttpOnly cookies in the editor's 
> draft, see:
> 
>   http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/XMLHttpRequest/#bibref

Okay, thanks.


-- 
Regards-
-Doug Schepers
W3C Team Contact, SVG, CDF, and WebAPI

Received on Tuesday, 27 May 2008 22:59:20 UTC