The Web Developer’s Guide to HTML 5 [Forwarded Thread]

aloha, all!

apologies for neglecting to ensure that w3c-wai-ua was carbon-copied on 
this -- it was supposed to be distributed to the UA, AU, and GL lists...  

there are 3 posts in the thread included below -- each post is 
separated from the other using the following convention:

=-=-=

for those of you with punctuation turned off, that's:

equals dash equals dash equals

gregory.

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From: Gregory J. Rosmaita <oedipus@hicom.net> 
Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2007 01:33:48 +0000
To: brewer@w3.org, w3c-wai-gl@w3.org, w3c-wai-au@w3.org 
Cc: alfred.s.gilman@ieee.org, wai-liaison@w3.org 
Message-Id: <20071124010457.M84758@hicom.net> 
Subj: The Web Developer’s Guide to HTML 5 [Forwarded Thread]

[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-au/2007OctDec/0049.html]

aloha!  during an IRC exchange during the tech plenary, i mentioned to 
jan richards that i want to get the AU WG involved in the drafting of 
the Authoring Tool requirements for HTML5 -- today, the following notice 
of a brief proposal for HTML 5 Authoring Guidelines was posted to 
public-html (the HTML WG's emailing list)

<quote 
cite="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Nov/0354.html">

  To: public-html <public-html@w3.org> 
From: Lachlan Hunt <lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au> 
Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 02:56:19  0100
Subj: HTML 5 Authoring Guidelines Proposal

Hi,

   I thought it would be worthwhile getting started on this and 
presenting a proposal.  So I wrote up a brief proposal for HTML 5 
Authoring Guidelines and checked it into CVS.  At this stage, it's very 
rough draft and effectively just an outline of how it could be written.

http://dev.w3.org/html5/html-author/

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

</quote>

i am a member of the HTML WG and currently serve as the liaison between
the HTML WG and the AUWG and UAWG -- MichaelC is also involved in (or at 
least closely monitors) HTML5 work, and he has done an excellent job 
of keeping tabs on developments in that arena as they may affect WCAG 
and ARIA; i think it is essential at this point in the process, that the 
AU, GL and UA working groups (and possibly the EO working group) 
immediately step forward and offer to participate in the drafting of:

* Authoring Guidelines for HTML5
* Authoring Tool Conformance Requirements for HTML5
* User Agent Conformance Requirements for HTML5

we have an opportunity to be present at the creation, and it is our 
role as W3C working groups to provide guidance to the HTML WG in the 3 
areas listed above, especially when it comes to integrating accessibility,
usability, and interoperability into W3C technical specifications... we
need to have a seat at the tables where and a voice in the process when 
these issues are discussed and determined, so that accessibility concerns 
and the importance of the end user experience (over implementor/developer 
convenience) are considered from the very beginning, so that the 
requirements and guidelines reflect a bottom-up, rather than a trickle
down approach to problem solving...

please let me know how i, as a member of the HTML working group, as well
as 1 of 6 delegates to the joint forms/html task force on forms, can be
of assistance, other than constantly pointing the HTML WG in the direction
of the user agent and authoring tool activities working groups, and 
periodically forwarding information which i believe to be of immediate 
import...

gregory.
------------------------------------------------------------
The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
                                               -- Mark Twain
------------------------------------------------------------
Gregory J. Rosmaita: oedipus@hicom.net
     Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/
        Oedipus' Online Complex: http://my.opera.com/oedipus
------------------------------------------------------------

=-=-=
From: Roberto Scano - IWA/HWG <r.scano@webprofession.com> 
Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2007 09:45:15 +0100
Message-ID: <00dd01c82e76$5ed8bc20$6a01a8c0@hprs> 
To: "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <oedipus@hicom.net>, <brewer@w3.org>, <w3c-wai-
gl@w3.org>, <w3c-wai-au@w3.org> 
Cc: <alfred.s.gilman@ieee.org>, <wai-liaison@w3.org> 
Subj: Re: The Web Developer's Guide to HTML 5

[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-au/2007OctDec/0050.html]

Hi Gregory,

Intresting idea but I've got a question: there is a need of a developer 
guide for a W3C future Rec.?
If a Rec. needs also a developer guide, I think there is need to rethink 
about the Rec. document due that the first destination of a W3C Rec. is 
for 
the developers :-)

Also Authoring Tools requirements - IMHO - shall based to future ATAG 2.0 
(last fixed WG draft: 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-au/2007OctDec/att-0048/WD-
ATAG20-20071122.html)

So my question is: we really need other docs?

Roberto Scano
International Webmasters Association / The HTML Writers Guild
http://www.iwanet.org

=-=-=
From: Gregory J. Rosmaita <oedipus@hicom.net> 
Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2007 17:12:16 +0000
To: "Roberto Scano - IWA/HWG" <r.scano@webprofession.com>, 
<brewer@w3.org>, <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>, <w3c-wai-au@w3.org> 
Cc: <alfred.s.gilman@ieee.org>, <wai-liaison@w3.org> 
Message-Id: <20071124163105.M19135@hicom.net> 
Subj: Re: The Web Developer's Guide to HTML 5

[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-au/2007OctDec/0051.html]

aloha, roberto!

whilst i agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment -- namely that 
there ARE extant authoring tool guidelines and user agent 
guidelines and content guidelines, the HTML5 draft as it exists
today attempts to address all of these areas internally, and try
as i might, i cannot get the editors to acknowledge what the HTML 
WG chairs have already acknowledged -- that there are already User 
Agent and Authoring Tool working groups in the W3C who continue to 
update their work, and whose work forms dependencies upon HTML5's 
development...  (for more details, consult:
http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AccessibilityDependencies)

in my opinion, one of the problems with the HTML5 draft as it currently 
exists, is that it reads more like a specification for user agent 
behavior than a technical specification of a declarative markup 
language...  the good news is that, as of this writing, NOTHING has been 
decided by the HTML WG, and every attempt to release the HTML5 editors' 
draft (http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/) has met with formal objections 
due to it being presented to the working group as a fait accompli...  

that being said, the HTML5 draft does enjoy the backing of several major 
developers who are already developing to the draft, or on whose 
originally proprietary concepts and implementations many of the new 
elements introduced by HTML5 are based, and which are codified in the 
HTML5 draft submitted to the W3C by the WHAT WG -- despite great 
resistance from author-advocates, accessibility advocates, and a great 
many other user-oriented angles (for my thoughts on the purpose of HTML5, 
you can read my blogsplat on the topic:
http://my.opera.com/oedipus/blog/2007/11/14/trickle-down-or-bottom-up)

the fact is that the HTML5 draft attempts to be all things to all 
interested parties -- it contains authoring guidelines, authoring tool 
conformance requirements and user agent conformance requirements -- 
which, unless they can be separated out of the HTML5 draft, need to be 
addressed within the framework of the HTML5 draft...  it is undeniably
a draft which is developer-oriented, and a document which is quickly 
becoming more and more a fait accompli, as 3 of the "big four" browser 
developers are implementing some of its most contentious concepts; 
a perfect example of such a codification of an ad-hoc solution is the 
CANVAS element, which is already being supported by and developed to by 
many of the same implementors who formally asked the HTML WG to adopt 
the HTML5 draft, as submitted to the W3C by the WHAT WG, as the basis of 
the HTML WG's work...

as an activity and as individual working groups, it is our responsibility
either to stake a dependency claim upon the sections of the HTML5 document
outlined in my original post, to create a joint task force to address 
these issues with the HTML WG, or to take an active role in the drafting
process -- whatever is decided, it needs to be formally logged in the 
form of a direct request from WG to WG -- i have pointed out time and 
again that the WAI suite of documents, as technical recommendations, 
must be accorded the same status as any other technical recommendation
issued by the W3C -- that the User Agent conformance section has a 
dependency upon UAWG work, that the Authoring Tool conformance section 
has a dependency upon AUWG work, that the "author guidance" portions of
the HTML5 draft be compliant with the past and present work of the GL WG,
and that all of the work issued by the WAI (XAG, the XML Accessibility 
Guidelines, etc.) MUST be considered in the drafting of HTML5...

just as we must make the HTML WG aware of our work and its crossover 
with the drafting of HTML5, so too must we keep abreast of developments 
in the molding of the HTML5 draft, to ensure that accessibility features
introduced by HTML4x are either retained or that they are not merely 
stripped from the HTML5 draft, but replaced by superior solutions; we 
have the necessary expertise to achieve these tasks, and it is our duty 
as an activity to do so...

gregory.
-------------------------------------------------------------
SELF-EVIDENT, adj.  Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
                    -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
-------------------------------------------------------------
    Gregory J. Rosmaita: oedipus@hicom.net
         Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/
Oedipus' Online Complex: http://my.opera.com/oedipus
-------------------------------------------------------------

Received on Thursday, 29 November 2007 19:05:39 UTC