- From: Charles Lamont <charles@gateho.gotadsl.co.uk>
- Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 09:26:44 +0100
- To: www-svg@w3.org
There are two related issues here. The first question is about how to write specs. Dirk says "We should remove all redundancy." and David says "Ease of use of a spec by authors is a fundamental concern." More of this in a minute. The second matter, raised by David, is about the philosophy and history of the SVG specification process. I have always shared his misgivings about devolving a lot of SVG into CSS. There is frequently no logical differentiation between 'style' and 'content' in a graphic work, and dividing one visualisation into two completely different document structures under two different sets of standards does not make the creation or maintenance of an image easier to understand or do. On the other hand I understand the reasons for the split. In any case, it is a fait accompli, and we probably have to live with it, start again from scratch, or wait until someone comes up with the brilliant idea of merging the two streams. So, how does the second question impinge on the first? From the point of view of creating and maintaining the specifications, they should be terse, orthogonal and complete. The spec should be a reference, not a handbook. However, the convenience of the specification's creators is secondary to that of its audience, and the target audience should be as broad as reasonably achievable. The complications arising from needing two systems at once need to be mitigated. The SVG specs need to make it clear what aspects of the image they define, what (kinds of related thing) they do not set out to define, and where to look. They needs to explain why so much of what will be needed is in CSS rather than SVG. Section by section indication would probably be helpful, but a fine-grained cross-reference to each detail would be onerous to maintain and might compromise readability. Diagrams might help. - Charles Lamont
Received on Wednesday, 21 May 2014 08:27:41 UTC