RE: SVGT 1.2: Appendix C3: SVG Error Processing

My opinion:

* I am all for mandated rules for error handling behavior within specs
if it can be specified simply and implemented simply, such as an XML
parser bailing if the content is not valid XML.

* I am against mandated rules error handling (and instead leave error
handling to the UA, as Jim suggests) if the spec and implementation
become complex.

In other words, if it qualifies as KISS, then mandate interoperable
error handling behavior; otherwise, tell content implementers and
content developers that error handling is UA dependent.

Jon


-----Original Message-----
From: www-svg-request@w3.org [mailto:www-svg-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Boris Zbarsky
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 1:40 PM
To: Jim Ley
Cc: www-svg@w3.org
Subject: 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 Friday, 6 January 2006 00:10:25 UTC