Re: extensions to HTML

On Wed, 2009-11-11 at 19:54 +0100, Jonathan Rees wrote:
> Is there a document somewhere giving anyone's views or opinions on
> whether and how HTML5 will be extended? I mean a neutral, predictive
> account, of the form "publishers and browser developers (and other
> producers and consumers) are likely to use and/or implement these
> kinds of extensions and not these others," rather than "I'll do my
> darnedest to make sure the Y does (or does not) happen" or "the
> standard says XXX and people had better listen" or "of course things
> would be better if YYY".
> 
> For example, one might say that addition of new elements and
> attributes is likely to happen, but not changes in the lexical syntax
> such as the addition of something like <% .... %> or allowing + in
> element names. Or, one might say that there will be no extensions, or
> that it's a free-for-all. (I have no idea whether any of these is
> likely or not; these are just examples.)
> 
> The best supporting arguments in favor of any particular theory would
> be economic, e.g. sunk cost, costs and benefits of extensions, cost of
> keeping up with competitors' practices, etc.

I think Dave Baron's contribution to the HTML WG versioning issue
is in the genre you describe (unless by "neutral" you mean
"reviewed and endorsed by some group with mandate" in which case
I don't know of any such writing; opinions vary widely in this space)
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/0279.html
 <- http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/4

He doesn't give much in the way of details about syntax; I think
the context of his message assumes that extensions will mostly
be element names, attribute names, and attribute values... oh...
and JavaScript properties and functions.

He recently updated/elaborated his thoughts in this space:

"There's been a debate in the HTML Working Group on distributed
extensibility; this led to a session at the Technical Plenary yesterday
(and, for me, an interesting lunch discussion afterwards that led me to
think about issues I hadn't before thought much about). ..."
  -- http://dbaron.org/log/20091105-distributed-extensibility


> I would find this useful. I assume the analysis has already been done,
> that's why I'm not asking the question directly of this list.
> 
> Thanks
> Jonathan
> 
> 


-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
gpg D3C2 887B 0F92 6005 C541  0875 0F91 96DE 6E52 C29E

Received on Wednesday, 11 November 2009 21:27:01 UTC