- From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Date: Sun, 6 May 2007 04:21:24 -0700
- To: Tina Holmboe <tina@greytower.co.uk>
- Cc: Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com>, Philip & Le Khanh <Philip-and-LeKhanh@royal-tunbridge-wells.org>, www-html@w3.org, public-html@w3.org
On May 6, 2007, at 4:03 AM, Tina Holmboe wrote: > On Sun, May 06, 2007 at 12:38:18PM +0200, Anne van Kesteren wrote: > >> # Are the semantics defined solely by the specification >> (Prescriptivism) >> # or informed by actual use (Descriptivism)? For human languages, >> # linguists generally take the Descriptivist approach. This turns >> out to >> # be a more productive way to interpret artifacts in human >> languages such >> # as English. > > "Descriptivism" is of no use what so ever in defining standards and > specifications. While humans may - and I say MAY - be able to > understand > gobbledegook, browsers are not. So there you go. I think bridging the descriptivist/prescriptivist philosophical chasm is probably beyond the scope of this mailing list and thus not worth arguing about much further. It took decades to settle in the field of linguistics and we're not going to settle it quickly in the field of web standards. It's good to recognize the difference, but I can't see either side convincing the other. Regards, Maciej
Received on Sunday, 6 May 2007 11:21:33 UTC