Re: SVGT 1.2: Appendix C3: SVG Error Processing

On Sun, 1 Jan 2006, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> 
> So I disagree with Jim's original bottom line:
> 
> Jim Ley wrote:
> > Just define what an error is, and leave the rest to the UA.  Vote for
> > less work!
> 
> In fact, failing to specify error recovery behavior can ultimately 
> create more work for implementors, not less.

It's also more work for the content developers, because they will write 
non-conformant markup (guarenteed), and then wonder why it acts 
differently in each browser, instead of writing non-conformant marker and 
getting the same behaviour in all browsers.

And finally it's more work for the spec authors, because as soon as they 
decide to make their spec actually useful to implementors and content 
authors, they'll have to describe error handling, at which time they have 
to go and reverse engineer all the UAs, coming up with test cases for all 
the obscure cases, and end up having to document all the crazy de facto 
error handling rules (which are always much more insane than any error 
handling rules that one would get through forward planning).

In conclusion, it's more work for everyone, on the long term.

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

Received on Monday, 2 January 2006 05:40:41 UTC