Re: SVGT 1.2: Appendix C3: SVG Error Processing

Jim Ley wrote:
> Just define what an error is, and leave the rest to the UA.  Vote for less 
> work!

For whom?  The spec authors?  Or the UA implementors and content authors? 
Well-specified error behavior (even something as simple as XML's "this is a 
fatal error, drop everything on the floor and stop" behavior) leads to 
significantly less work for UA implementors and (in the long run) content 
authors.  Of course it _is_ more work for the authors of the specification in 
some cases, especially if the desired error-handling is complicated.

As a simple example, the ratio of time spent on HTML parsing vs time spent on 
XML parsing in Gecko development right now is probably about 10:1.  Largely 
because with XML parsing issues simply don't arise; you just follow the spec, 
and as soon as content doesn't you bail.  No complex error-recovery behavior to 
reverse-engineer.  The XML parser is definitely a lot less work for this 
particular set of UA implementors, even though the HTML parser is older and more 
mature.

-Boris

Received on Thursday, 5 January 2006 21:40:45 UTC