- From: Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de>
- Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2013 08:56:55 +0100
- To: Marcos Caceres <w3c@marcosc.com>, John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>
- CC: Matthew Kerwin <matthew@kerwin.net.au>, uri@w3.org
On 2013-12-13 03:48, Marcos Caceres wrote: > > > > On Friday, December 13, 2013 at 12:46 PM, John Cowan wrote: > >> Marcos Caceres scripsit: >>> >>> >>> On Friday, December 13, 2013 at 12:43 AM, John Cowan wrote: >>> >>>> It's in his bibliography. But like most (all?) WHATWG products, it is a >>>> reference implementation, not a standard. >>> >>> >>> >>> I think you might be confused: a browser is a reference implementation >>> (in that you can reference it as attempting to implement a standard); a >>> standard is a technical specification that has multiple implementations >>> and is overseen by a standardization authority (in this case, the >>> WHATWG). >> >> >> >> A reference implementation is an implementation that itself constitutes the >> standard; if you want to know what the standard prescribes, you fire up >> the implementation and try it. WHATWG standards are written in code >> (it would be perfectly feasible to write a compiler for it), and that's >> why they are reference implementations. >> > > I don’t understand what you mean by they are written in code? They are written in pseudo-code written in English (at least this one). This might be very useful for people writing implementation code, but it's not so helpful for people *using* the feature (like authoring file URIs), or people trying to understand why something works the way it works. Best regards, Julian
Received on Friday, 13 December 2013 07:57:26 UTC