Re: [CSS21] Please endorse xml:id

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Norman Walsh wrote:
> >
> > It's not appropriate for a spec to take positions on other 
> > technologies.
> 
> Huh? Specifications establish dependencies all the time.

What you are asking for here is not a dependency. There is nothing about 
xml:id that CSS requires.


> > Technologies should succeed or fail on their own merits, not because 
> > they were dragged kicking and screaming into implementations by virtue 
> > of other specs requiring them.
> 
> Who's doing the dragging and who's doing the kicking and screaming, 
> exactly?

My statement was a general statement. If spec A requires spec B, despite 
being orthogonal to spec B and not requiring spec B in a technical sense, 
then spec A is attempting to drag spec B into implementations.


> > In any case, it makes no difference what we require. Implementators 
> > ignore this kind of requirement if it isn't in line with what they 
> > want to implement. To exit CR we need to show two interoperable 
> > implementations; we'd just end up dropping any requirement like this 
> > that wasn't met. And that begs the question: why have such 
> > requirements in the first place?
> 
> I believe it would improve interoperability, you appear to believe that 
> it would not. *Shrug*

Bjoern and David have given multiple examples of cases where this kind of 
requirement has utterly failed to improve interoperability. David even 
gave examples of how such requirements could _harm_ interoperability.

I strongly agree with both of them.

I haven't yet seen any technical reason for requiring xml:id support of 
CSS implementations. It doesn't improve _CSS_ implementations at all.


Consider this: Would your working group put a requirement in the xml:id 
spec saying that xml:id implementations that had rendering components were 
required to support CSS?

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

Received on Friday, 1 July 2005 02:43:32 UTC