- From: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
- Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 17:17:43 +1100
- To: john_slatin <john_slatin@forum.utexas.edu>
- Cc: "'Lee Roberts'" <leeroberts@roserockdesign.com>, w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
john_slatin writes: > > I see your point, Lee, and it makes sense. I think we would be wise to > avoid phrases like "user agent engines" because the concept of an "engine" > is foreign to most people. The ones who recognize the term might associate > it with "search engines," but they still won't know what the word "engine" > means in that context, either. Ultimately, I don't think it is a communication issue. Rather it is an attempt to tie the checkpoint too much to the structure of those implementations in which the concept of an "engine" makes sense. I suggest we return to the underlying issue: not only is there a variety of user agents, but people with particular needs addressed by the guidelines have reason to select implementations that best meet their needs, including custom-developed user agents. Content that relies on a single, specific implementation of the formats, API's and protocols it uses, will be inaccessible to users who, for whatever reasons, find that their needs are best met, or can only be met, by a different implementation from that on which the author has chosen to depend. The current discussion relates only to how the requirement should be expressed; there is at present no dispute as to its importance or place in the guidelines, issues which I therefore leave aside in what follows. I think the simplest and most accurate mode of expression is to say that there exist multiple, independent and interoperable implementations of the technologies (i.e., formats, protocols, API's etc.) used by the content. This is different from saying that the content is implemented in multiple user agents, in as much as it is here explicitly prescribed that the implementations must be independent, provided that a suitable definition of independence is given, e.g., that they have not been developed by the same entity, or that they don't have substantial code in common, or whatever seems most reasonable as a requirement.
Received on Thursday, 26 December 2002 01:18:15 UTC