Re: [whatwg/url] Provide a succinct grammar for valid URL strings (#479)

@aucampia there is. 

I’ve worked on a formal grammar and added support for relative references in a way that is compatible with the WHATWG URL standard. I put an immense amount of time and effort into that. I did so because of the statement in the standard that it obsoletes the RFCs and I wanted to be thorough and up to date. I didn’t know that there was a conflict with the IETF.

It doesn’t matter but my account is, let’s put it this way, that I inadvertently touched upon a sensitive issue with it, and I experienced the response to my attempts and also to others’ such as @bagder here to be so profoundly off the mark and personally hurtful that I saw no other possibility but to collect my notes and write a new specification, in order to transcend my emotions. 

The document is here: [URL Specification] and it includes a formal grammar. It is not normative, but descriptive of the WHATWG standard. If you find a difference then that is a bug. The only exception is that I’ve already included a solution to an issue about drive letters that is still open here.

I had to name the document so boldly, it hurt me to do so, but I found that the editors of the WHATWG standard really had to be called to attention.

Evidently, doing so doesn’t create an environment of trust, so it’s been very hard for me to work together on issues here since.

FWIW I also read the email thread that @karwa (whose work here I respect a lot) mentions, but I did have a different assessment of it. I found that there was hostility, but also that it was understandable on both sides. 

Content wise there is one significant thing that I’d change right now, which is to handle opaque paths in the grammar. I’d say that this is the most significant grammatical difference between the RFC and the WHATWG standard. I’m too tired to get into that now though. 

[URL Specification]: https://github.com/alwinb/url-specification


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