Re: Cleaning House

Dave Raggett wrote:
> I am however convinced that HTML can be specified in a more modular
> fashion, and that this would allow the hTML WG to prioritise and
> progress modules on a much quicker basis than one giant spec. I am sure
> that many people would like to see a sequence of modular W3C
> Recommendations coming out a regular intervals rather than waiting many
> years for the big bang. The work of the editors will be reduced by this
> approach despite the initial investment in splitting the spec into
> modules, however, I bet that in the process, they and we will discover
> things along the way that will make the combined specs much stronger as
> a result.

I agree with this. XMLHttpRequest was originally in a WHAT-WG spec;
there didn't seem to be problems handing that off to another group. HTML
5 contains a lot of stuff codifying existing practice, and a lot of new
ideas. It contains some things which are controversial, and many other
things which are not.

I think there is great value in making it easier to eat the elephant by
breaking it into smaller pieces, each of which can proceed at their own
pace. We might even be able to decide on which piece(s) to do first, and
therefore the discussion on these mailing lists would get less voluble
and more focussed.

I appreciate this may be more work for the spec editor, at least
initially; but then, having the current document arranged in a logical
and consistent order is more work than just throwing the sections in as
we think of them. But we look at costs vs. benefits. If some of the
component documents can reach CR status (or whatever; my exact knowledge
of the different steps is rusty) quicker than one combined document
would, then that's definitely a benefit.

Gerv

Received on Friday, 4 May 2007 20:02:00 UTC