Re: kelvSYC's Thoughts on the new XHTML Draft

At 14:43 -0700 2003-05-10, Tantek Çelik wrote:
>On 5/10/03 1:42 PM, "Henri Sivonen" <hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote:
>  > The elements and attributes that were deprecated in HTML 4 exist in the
>>  XHTML 1 namespace because they were labeled "Transitional".
>
>Yes, and this greatly aided the adoption/success of HTML4.

There's nothing to prove that and that's one of the arguments which 
has been used and used until it lacks of substance.

We will never know if the Web would have been any different if the 
browsers have been stricter, the authors more aware of Semantics, 
etc. We are all of us just dealing with assumptions without any 
proofs.

That said. There's a room to try to make progress on it. We may try 
to understand why the Web is such a mess and discussed for centuries 
about the past, or try to look forward.


>  > Don't two different heading schemes constitute complexity for the
>>  authors?
>
>Yes.  Hence my suggestion to place them in a separate module.  Then that
>module as a whole can be deprecated.  We can even group all the deprecated
>modules together so people know what is still supported, but should be
>avoided in lieu of new & better solutions.

I would like that the XHTML 2.0 spec address  also the authoring 
tools, which is almost not done at all. The problem right now is that 
in each feature which are developed, we often think in terms of User 
Agents (browsers) and never in terms of :
	Authoring Tools
	Third party software

In each discussion we should also identify:
	- Web Developer
	- Common User

They are definitely not the same and have different behaviour in 
their using of HTML.


* The case of h1 to h6 versus h

They have never been used correctly, except a small group of "strict" 
people who cares about the semantic meaning of elements. This group 
will be the same group of people who will accept h/section (except a 
few exceptions).

The other group which doesn't care will continue, they will still 
misuse or at least they will not know. Because in a user scenario 
case. They will create a section, like they do in word processing 
software and type their text. The thing which is behind is just a 
piece of code they don't see.

>The most common case copy/paste case will likely be that of an author
>copy/pasting from an HTML4/XHTML1.x document to an XHTML2 document.  In that
>case, permitting h1...h6 is very helpful, and will aid transition/adoption.

or gives to the user the possibility to convert their text. It will 
not be too difficult to create an XSLT which convert XHTML 1.0 in 
XHTML 2.0. Once again for  Web developers they will appreciate, for 
common user, they will don't know at all (or just a warning window 
ala "Would you like to import your TextDesk 5.1 in a TextDesk 2000 
doc?").


>  > I mean cruft in the sense that they are redundant considering that
>  > there will be another preferred way (h and section).
>
>We should not be so scared of a little bit of redundancy.  It's often more
>helpful than hurtful.  Certainly if biology is any lesson.

Please, please, please, don't do abusive comparison... we are 
destroying the real issues here. We can all make analogies of this 
type which means nothing. That's rethorical not meaningful. You are 
not Mendeleiev, and I'm not Sir Poincaré.


-- 
Karl Dubost / W3C - Conformance Manager
           http://www.w3.org/QA/

      --- Be Strict To Be Cool! ---

Received on Tuesday, 13 May 2003 17:43:19 UTC