- From: John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu>
- Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:36:36 -0700 (PDT)
- To: "'Boris Zbarsky'" <bzbarsky@MIT.EDU>, <joshue.oconnor@cfit.ie>
- Cc: "'HTML WG'" <public-html@w3.org>, "'Gez Lemon'" <gez.lemon@gmail.com>, "'Steve Faulkner'" <sfaulkner@paciellogroup.com>, "'Gregory J. Rosmaita'" <oedipus@hicom.net>, "'W3C WAI-XTECH'" <wai-xtech@w3.org>, "'www-archive'" <www-archive@w3.org>, "'Janina Sajka'" <janina@rednote.net>, "'Sam Ruby'" <rubys@intertwingly.net>, "'Ian Hickson'" <ian@hixie.ch>
Boris Zbarsky wrote: > > Would it make sense to add a datastructure attribute (or some other more > suitable name), require UAs to look for the relationships between data > cells in that attribute and then in @summary in that order, and make use > of @summary a validator warning or some such? And make sure that the > spec has some examples of tables and corresponding @datastructure values. > The current Design Principle states: "2.3. Do not Reinvent the Wheel - If there is already a widely used and implemented technology covering particular use cases, consider specifying that technology in preference to inventing something new for the same purpose. Sometimes, though, new use cases may call for a new approach instead of more extensions on an old approach." We can go 'round-and-'round on the "widely used" part of that sentence, but there can be no argument that it is currently implemented in both user Agents and AT today, which lends serious weight to the general concept of not reinventing any wheels. I have not read or heard of any new use-case here> It is becoming increasingly clear that, as Josh O'Connor wrote [1], there needs to be a disambiguation of @summary, and clear, precise guidance on its usage, which evidence is showing was clearly lacking in HTML4 (i.e. better "specify that technology"). However I seriously question jettisoning @summary for @datastructure simply to address existing holes in usage and intent of @summary. My $0.02 JF [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jun/0362.html
Received on Wednesday, 10 June 2009 16:37:16 UTC