- From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 23:07:25 -0800
- To: Kasimier Buchcik <K.Buchcik@4commerce.de>
- Cc: Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com>, ML-www-dom <www-dom@w3.org>
On Dec 1, 2005, at 2:33 AM, Kasimier Buchcik wrote: > I understand that the DOM spec evolves over time; mostly on basis of > requirements of the 'real world'. But the issue we talk about is, > in my eyes, a simple misuse of a method. Aren't the sites you call > 'the real world' a broken world? In many cases this is reasonable. For example, suppose there is a non- standard method to perform a particular operation and also a standards-compliant way. You can ask sites to use the standard method instead of the non-standard one, or at least test for both alternatives if they also wish to be compatible with legacy browsers. And then browsers that wish to be both compliant and compatible can implement both methods. But in this case, there is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Since all major browsers have a behavior for a standard method that does not match the spec, sites cannot change or else they will stop working. Conversely, browsers can't change without breaking sites. And there's no way a browser could implement both alternatives, since a value must be either null or the empty string, it cannot be both. That's why I think this particular issue is one of very few exceptions where a loosening of the spec is warranted. Regards, Maciej
Received on Friday, 2 December 2005 07:07:48 UTC