RE: Friction and cross pollination

I was thinking of Patrick Dengler's HTML.next presentation at  http://www.w3.org/2010/11/TPAC/HTMLnext.pdf which catalogs some of the issues.  That task force's web site is a little out of date or incomplete with regard to milestones and meetings, though (e.g., "next meeting" is TPAC 2010).  And the CSS-SVG task force charter doesn't seem as broad as the list of issues raised at last year's TPAC.

"go meta on every single W3C activity" is an unreasonable  strawman. Of course, the overhead of a task force is high, and we should only have them when there are real problems that aren't being resolved in a timely fashion (like before recommendations issue).  It's great that CSS and SVG got together without the TAG having to say anything.

A far as HTML and XML go, I think saying there are "two ecosystems" for the web is an unhelpful perspective. Sure, there is an ecosystem of HTML without XML; after all, it's what we had in the web before XML came along.  And I suppose there is something you could call an XML-only ecosystem.  However, there is a community that works with both HTML and XML, in which XML tools are used to produce, refine, manipulate HTML material, and it seems like the ability to combine the two while remaining conforming to W3C specifications isn't getting better but, rather, worse. The new specs may "reflect reality" but we're moving to more divergence, and the benefits don't seem to compensate for the loss. 

Larry


-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Berjon [mailto:robin@berjon.com] 
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 2:54 PM
To: Larry Masinter
Cc: Michael Champion; Noah Mendelsohn; ndw@nwalsh.com; www-tag@w3.org
Subject: Re: Friction and cross pollination

On Oct 17, 2011, at 23:37 , Larry Masinter wrote:
>> we'll simply shut down once the report is published
> 
> Yes, task forces should produce a report and shut down. The report should identify follow-on work that needs to be done, whether in working groups or community groups.
> 
> However, in the case where there are ongoing activities in W3C developing incompatible material (XML and HTML, RDFa and microdata, or, say, WebVTT and TTML) insufficient regard to cross-specification compatibility and interoperability, I don't think sending the remaining work to a "community group" is appropriate.

I don't think that the suggestion expressed (certainly not by me) was to send further work about XML/HTML alignment to a community group. I simply suggested that there are some interesting (to some) topics that are peripheral to core XML/HTML alignment and that these can be best processed by interested parties outside of the TF.

For what it's worth, my perception of the XML/HTML situation is that we are not in a case of "incompatible material" being developed with "insufficient regard to cross-specification compatibility and interoperability". We have two ecosystems that have bridges between them, and both are doing a great job at cross-specification compatibility and interoperability. Yes, technically, we could merge them. But just because we could does not mean that we should, or that the value in doing so would exceed the pain involved in merging rather than bridging where necessary.

>   I'm glad to hear that "most involved parties" are happy with the current direction wrt canvas/SVG/CSS, but I haven't seen any documents about the situation other than a talk at last year's TPAC in Lyon. Is there a report or analysis I'm missing?

I am not convinced that we need to go meta on every single W3C activity. Canvas and SVG are both doing fine, and each has its uses. Knowing when to use which is a matter for best practices, which I'm sure someone will write up at some point (if it hasn't happened already - I know Doug Schepers had excellent notes about this). SVG and CSS are cooperating in a joint TF that seems to be making very good progress.

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon

Received on Tuesday, 18 October 2011 18:53:27 UTC