- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 13:50:31 +0000 (UTC)
On Mon, 21 Jun 2004, Jim Ley wrote: >>> >>> Oh right, so you're actually talking a load of crap with your supporting >>> legacy clients, you're actually just wanting to support one legacy >>> client. >> >> Sorry, I thought this was clear... Is there somewhere on the site or in >> the specs where this is misleading? I'd be happy to correct it. > > Well, let's start with this page: > > http://whatwg.org/news/start > > you're initial press release, mentions backwards compatibility as a key > goal, not backwards compatibility with IE6, but screw everyone else, > who's invested in a browser. I think you are reading way too much into "backwards compatible". HTML4+ECMAScript is "backwards compatible" with Lynx. If you disagree, then I am afraid I don't understand what your own goals are. What would you like to see developed? You said that you half-agreed with the backwards-compatibility argument presented at the recent workshop; which part did you _not_ agree with? What the WHATWG members meant by backwards compatible can probably most usefully be demonstrated by giving an example of what is _not_ backwards compatible: if you create a document using any of SVG, XHTML2, SMIL, or XForms, then you open this document in any browser, you get either an error message, or a download dialog, or complete garbage. The idea is that with WHATWG-spec-based documents, you still get most of the content. Just like when HTML4 came out, and UAs only did HTML3.2. Or when CSS came out and UAs only did HTML. > Indeed, google cannot find "internet explorer", "IE" or "IE6" mentioned > anywhere on the WHATWG.org site, so I'm not sure how we were supposed to > get any impression that backwards compatibility meant anything other > than backwards compatibility. What do you mean by backwards compatibility, in the context of new specifications like this? -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Monday, 21 June 2004 06:50:31 UTC