Re: Backwards compatibility of new selectors (was: Color

> So?  There isn't a significant hurdle in just implementing all
> the functionality one needs to in order to be competative?  You
> aren't talking a significant difference here IMO..

The fundamental problem with the hurdle being so big is this:
Since the major browsers each have an independantly broken 
implementation of the standard we are forced to create distinct 
parsers that can handle both of these proliferate broken standards in 
addition to the correct standard.  If the functionality was 
consistent and functional coherent then it wouldn't be a problem to 
implement, unfortunately many extensions and "special" features of 
the two major browsers are so badly malformed that there is no 
capacity for them to fit into the standard at all.
 
> Not for the users, authors and developers who've already sweated
> blood.  It is,  IMO,  fortunate that the standard will be changed
> so..

As long as nothing significant is changed there is never a problem, 
losing sections and making minor rewrites is fine, or at least making 
a significant document noting all of the changes.

Consider what happened with HTML 3.0, many small vendors, priovate 
individuals even, produced hundreds of tools for this draft.  When it 
was entirely discarded by the W3C many of those authors simply 
scrapped their project and lost interest in doing them anymore.  But 
the large vendors that were slow and lethargic that did nothing to 
use HTML 3.0 didn't lose anything, and instead they started producing 
all of their own custom extensions, now which are being added into 
the standards.

The one thing we're fortunate for is that when we try to implement 
DSSSL we'll have a better chance we can follow the standard closer, 
since none of the major vendors have really had a chance to corrupt 
it yet...
__
| Mortar: Advanced Web Development <http://mortar.bigpic.com/>
| Neil St.Laurent                  <mailto:stlaurent@bigpic.com>
| Big Picture Multimedia

Received on Wednesday, 3 December 1997 10:59:58 UTC