Re: Request for editing guidance

On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 9:15 AM, Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de> wrote:
> On 09.06.2010 18:02, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>>
>> ...
>> @hidden has not been a part of HTML for ages.  It was introduced in
>> HTML5, same as @ping and Microdata.  (Perhaps you temporarily confused
>> it with<input type=hidden>?)
>> ...
>
> That being said, it is controversial, and we're waiting for a decision on it
> (<http://dev.w3.org/html5/status/issue-status.html#ISSUE-095>).
>
>> @class and Microdata are comparable because both are arbitrary
>> extension points to the language for use by authors.  Whether
>> something is "controversial" or not doesn't affect its technical merit
>> or how useful it would be for authors.  Those latter points are what
>> is actually important for designing a good language.  People will get
>> over controversy.
>
> Doesn't compute.
>
> @class has been around for ages and is in active use with CSS. It's not
> controversial.

Could someone define "controversial"? Does that mean that there are
people of different opinion on how a feature should work / weather it
should exist? If so, wouldn't that make every feature controversial?

Also, please give the argument for why a features level of controversy should

> Microdata was a "mee-too" invention from Ian, competing with another W3C
> spec.

Ian has many times laid out technical arguments for why microdata was
developed in place of RDFa, I'd be really surprised if you had managed
to miss them all? In fact, it seems like the developers of RDFa has
agreed with at least some of the arguments as the new version of RDFa
is aiming to solve the same problem, in an equally incompatible way
(at least that was the case last I looked).

Also, since when is competing with another spec bad or disallowed? If
we shouldn't compete with other specs then XML should not have been
developed as it competes with SGML, XHTML should not have been
developed as it competes with HTML. XSLT should not have been
developed as it competes with DSSSL. XSL:FO should not have been
developed as it competes with CSS. RDFa should not have been developed
as it competes with HTML4 (rel, class, profile etc).

And if the argument it's ok to compete with non-W3C specifications
(which only excludes some of the examples above mind you), then why is
that?

/ Jonas

Received on Wednesday, 9 June 2010 17:46:23 UTC