More issues with checkpoint 5.1 (DOM access to content)

Hello,

I have just been talking with Philippe Le Hegaret,
who is the W3C DOM Activity Lead about checkpoint 5.1, which
in the Candidate Rec [1] reads:

   5.1 Provide programmatic read and write access to content by
conforming 
       to W3C Document Object Model (DOM) specifications and exporting 
       interfaces defined by those specifications. [Priority 1] 

There have already been much Candidate Rec discussion about this
checkpoint
(refer to issues 190 [2] and 194 [3]). Here are some additional comments
from my conversation with Philippe:

1) DOM only addresses HTML and XML. Therefore, checkpoint 5.1 would not
   cover programmatic access to content in any other format, such as
SGML.

2) Philippe feels that user agents should be required to conform to DOM
Level
   2 core and Level two HTML. DOM Level 2 core is the same as DOM Level
1 core, 
   but adds XML namespaces. DOM Level 2 HTML is the same as DOM Level 1
HTML. 
   Conformance to the other DOM Level 2 modules is optional according to
the DOM
   2 spec. His point is this: requiring DOM Level 2 core/HTML
conformance is not
   much more than DOM Level 1 conformance and not including namespace
support would
   be a mistake. Also, if you want to implement events, you can do so on
top of
   DOM Level 2. You can't on top of DOM Level 1 alone.

3) The DOM does not specify a notion of "read-only DOM", although the
DOM Working
   Group has considered doing so (in a future version). It is not clear
that the
   UA Working Group could make a requirement that user agents implement
the
   "read-only" parts of DOM 1 and/or 2 since the specs do not define
"read-only".

We conclude therefore that:

a) We need a checkpoint that ensures access to content that may not be
HTML/XML. 
b) We need to reconsider the "read-only" checkpoint proposal. 

Thoughts?

 - Ian

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-UAAG10-20000128/
[2] http://cmos-eng.rehab.uiuc.edu/ua-issues/issues-linear.html#190
[3] http://cmos-eng.rehab.uiuc.edu/ua-issues/issues-linear.html#194
-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel/Fax:                     +1 212 684-1814 or 212 532-4767
Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Thursday, 17 February 2000 17:50:09 UTC