[whatwg] [web-apps] Some comments

[Ian Hickson]

On Mon, 9 Aug 2004, [ISO-8859-1] Olav Junker Kjær wrote:
> 
> For WAML, however, I don't think graceful degradation as far as support 
> for browsers without CSS or script makes sense. As I understand the 
> spec, WAML is intended for complex applications with menus, dialog 
> boxes, complex controls, lots off script, two-way communication with the 
> server in the background and so on. There is no way, that this kind of 
> application will degrade gracefully on browser which doesn't support CSS 
> or script.

There's no reason CSS should be required.

Script, sure (it's an application after all), but not CSS.


> The position paper says:
>
> "Basic Web application features should be implementable using behaviors, 
> scripting, and style sheets in IE6 today so that authors have a clear 
> migration path. "
>
> I think this is a resonable requirement, however its a far cry from 
> requiring that web applications should degrade gracefully in Netscape 2 
> with scripting turned off.

There is, however, a difference between "degrade gracefully" and "degrade 
functionally". We're not saying that WA1 stuff should actively _work_ in 
old browsers, naturally. Just that it shouldn't completely screw up and 
look like a horrible mess. (Or at least, that it shouldn't force authors 
to get to that point if they don't want it to.)

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'