Re: URL work in HTML 5

On 26/09/2012 16:57 , Noah Mendelsohn wrote:
> On 9/26/2012 7:08 AM, Robin Berjon wrote:
>> You seem to believe that the approach taken in HTML and other such
>> specifications is to prolong the mess generated by A-type standards
>> — in fact it is the exact opposite. Once the mess left by the
>> unavoidable drift in A-type standards is properly accounted for and
>> grandfathered, technology development can proceed sanely. The vast
>> increase in HTML-based innovation over the past few years is a
>> testimony to this.
>
> I'm sorry, but in this case you're putting words in my mouth, and
> then debating what you claim I'm saying.

I said *seem to believe*. I'm sorry if it was unclear; I was not trying 
to put words in your mouth but rather to respond to what I understood 
from your email — with indication that I was unsure if it was what you 
indeed did mean.

Irrespective of whether it is representative of your opinion or not, I 
still think it's TAG material :)

> If I have a concern, it's that I don't see as much emphasis as I'd
> like from a social, a technical and publicity perspective on getting
> authors to follow [1], and to produce content that validates. One can
> imagine investing in educational materials and activities, publicity,
> or possibly even browser modes that create social pressure to "do it
> right".

Working Groups in general have historically been bad at that — it could 
be argued that they're not the right place.

There are plenty of efforts to promote quality in content. There's 
WAI-based efforts — oriented towards accessibility but that's certainly 
one part of it. There's the Web Education CG[0] which is one of the most 
successful CGs out there (look at their wiki — they have hundreds of 
pages of excellent content, and Chris Mills, their chair, just joined 
W3C as a Fellow to work on education). There are too many grassroot 
groups dedicated to this to cite them all, but I believe that the highly 
popular Move The Web Forward[1] and Test The Web Forward[2] crews are 
good examples.

Additionally we have a high quality reusable and extensible validator.

Browsers are also increasingly helping here. Many will provide all sorts 
of useful warnings for developers in the console (for HTML, CSS, JS, 
etc.). Firefox view source will highlight invalid content in red. Their 
DevRel teams also often do a wonderful job in education and outreach. 
W3C is also moving into the DevRel space.

So while I sympathise with your concern, and there's of course always 
more to be done, I think that things are moving in the right direction!

[0] http://www.w3.org/community/webed/
[1] http://movethewebforward.org/
[2] http://testthewebforward.org/

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

Received on Wednesday, 26 September 2012 16:06:17 UTC