- From: Daniel W. Connolly <connolly@beach.w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 07 May 1996 10:30:46 -0400
- To: Jonas Liljegren <a95jonas@student.adb.gu.se>
- Cc: www-html@w3.org
In message <318F50E4.71D7@student.adb.gu.se>, Jonas Liljegren writes: >> Now that W3C has funding to do this sort of thing... your wish is my >> command... Please see: >> >> http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Wilbur/ > >What happend to the lang attribute? It's not in HTML 3.2, but the whole I18N issue is definitely on the agenda: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Activity Whoops! Actually, it's not mentioned there. Ah... see: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/International/Activity Anyway... it's definitly on the agenda. There's a definite cry for "HTML 2.0 + tables and I18N" and HTML 3.2 is very close. I think we'll close that gap over the summer. >Are they going to skop attributes and elements that was previous discussed? In some cases, yes; in others, no. This is another descriptive standard; i.e. it describes the features that are used and supported consistently in practice, rather than prescribing new features. Features get introduced, and then they go through a period of experimentation. Some survive -- users use them and other implementors support them in a compatible fashion -- and some don't. HTML 2.0 was an attempt to describe what was happening so that everybody would be on the same page, and march forward together from there. It succeded in describing, but didn't succeed in unifying. It didn't become the focal point for new developments. Note that concurrent with the release of HTML 3.2, we have working specifications for stylesheets, <object>, forms enhancements, and other design issues: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/ This shows a commitment on the part of major vendors to not just reverse-engineer each other's extensions, but collaboratively design new ones. Unfortunately, we sacrificed some openness to get this buy-in. In this high-dollar VC marketplace, vendors were uncomfortable discussing future developments in a public forum. W3C provides a more confidential forum, where a half-baked design idea won't be misinterpreted as a public commitment. We do make our specs public during the design, and we keep our ear to the ground for public feedback. We just don't have time and resources to address all public comments, the way it was done in the IETF working group for HTML. Dan
Received on Tuesday, 7 May 1996 10:30:53 UTC