QASG last call comments: Avoiding device-dependent profiles

"4.1 Good Practice A: Create subdivisions of the technology when
warranted" -- One additional "technique" I would recommend here is to
avoid profiling device-independent technologies in device-dependent
ways. For example, having mobile profiles for markup languages. Such
profiles will lead to a fragmented Web, as content written for the
full profile will only work on full UAs, and content for smaller
profiles will be written with the assumption that they will only be
used from small devices.

Instead, I would recommend having either just a lowest common
denominator, implementable on all devices, or having optional features
with well-defined fallback behaviour, so that they can be used in all
content with the technology usably interoperable even in
implementations that implement only the required parts.

For example, CSS requires all UAs to implement full RGB color, but on
black-and-white devices the specified colours are then down-sampled to
fit the available hardware.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Wednesday, 19 January 2005 14:54:49 UTC