Re: URL work in HTML 5

On Sep 24, 2012, at 7:00 AM, Noah Mendelsohn wrote:

> www-tag readers may be interested in the attached e-mail which links to one from from Anne van Kesteren [1], which was relayed to the URI mailing list by Julian Reschke. The e-mail suggests that
> > The plan is to obsolete the RFCs. But yes, I will add some references
> > in the Goals section most likely. Similar to what has been done in the
> > DOM Standard.
> Julian raises the concern that RFC 3986 is a Full (and widely deployed) Standard. I believe this discussion is in relation to [2], which contains the following related text:
> 
> -------------
> 2.6 URLs
> 
> This specification defines the term URL, and defines various algorithms for dealing with URLs, because for historical reasons the rules defined by the URI and IRI specifications are not a complete description of what HTML user agents need to implement to be compatible with Web content.
> 
> Note: The term "URL" in this specification is used in a manner distinct from the precise technical meaning it is given in RFC 3986. Readers familiar with that RFC will find it easier to read this specification if they pretend the term "URL" as used herein is really called something else altogether. This is a willful violation of RFC 3986. [RFC3986]
> 
> --------------
> 
> Noah
> 
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-whatwg-archive/2012Sep/0297.html
> [2] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/urls.html


Yes, it is truly remarkable that otherwise functioning human beings
are willing to go so out of the way to redefine "URL" to mean what
most people call a reference, rather than simply admit that they were
using the wrong word inside the clique of whatwg.

Hence, the value of href is now a URL, not a hypertext reference, and
the value of src is a URL, not a source reference.  Who cares what the
dozens of books on my bookshelf say about the term?

BTW, did you know that "" is a URL?

....Roy