Re: [whatwg/url] It's not immediately clear that "URL syntax" and "URL parser" conflict (#118)

@JohnMHarrisJr I appreciate your enthusiasm, but please keep in mind: This Standard reflects the way the world is, not the way we want it to be. As @magcius mentioned, it's important to capture how the world actually is - and where it's diverged from the idealistic view of the RFCs - so that we can accurately know the bugs, quirks, and behaviours that exist.

Arguing on ideological purity ("It shouldn't be in the spec") accomplishes nothing, serves nothing, because at the end of the day, code is running today that accepts it, servers depend on that/exploit that, and the Standard accurately reflects that.

I don't think there's opposition to making a "better world, tomorrow" - and @domenic comment in https://github.com/whatwg/url/issues/118#issuecomment-218323801 suggests how we can go about making that world. But the Standard exists to reflect what code today is doing - warts and all - so that there's consistency - warts and all. Once we have consistency, we can also make a concerted, collaborative effort to move to the world we want.

I think you're confusing the documenting the state of the world as promoting it, and that's not the case, no more than a study of controversial topics (say, a study of racism, or police violence, or global warming) should be seen as promoting/endorsing it. The Standard is not saying it's good - it's saying "This is the world we live in, and this is how to work within that world today" - and once we understand how bad it is, we can collaborate to make it better. And https://github.com/whatwg/url/issues/118#issuecomment-218323801 captures how we can do that, with browsers in particular having a significant influence not because of any innate primacy/superiority, but simply because they're the way most users will interact with the content, and the first and only means that authors will know something works or doesn't work.

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