[whatwg] <output> and onforminput

[Ian Hickson]

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004, Jim Ley wrote:
>>>
>>> Oh right, so you're actually talking a load of crap with your supporting
>>> legacy clients, you're actually just wanting to support one legacy
>>> client.
>>
>> Sorry, I thought this was clear... Is there somewhere on the site or in
>> the specs where this is misleading? I'd be happy to correct it.
>
> Well, let's start with this page:
>
> http://whatwg.org/news/start
>
> you're initial press release, mentions backwards compatibility as a key
> goal, not backwards compatibility with IE6, but screw everyone else,
> who's invested in a browser.

I think you are reading way too much into "backwards compatible".

HTML4+ECMAScript is "backwards compatible" with Lynx.

If you disagree, then I am afraid I don't understand what your own goals
are. What would you like to see developed? You said that you half-agreed
with the backwards-compatibility argument presented at the recent
workshop; which part did you _not_ agree with?

What the WHATWG members meant by backwards compatible can probably most
usefully be demonstrated by giving an example of what is _not_ backwards
compatible: if you create a document using any of SVG, XHTML2, SMIL, or
XForms, then you open this document in any browser, you get either an
error message, or a download dialog, or complete garbage.

The idea is that with WHATWG-spec-based documents, you still get most of
the content. Just like when HTML4 came out, and UAs only did HTML3.2. Or
when CSS came out and UAs only did HTML.


> Indeed, google cannot find "internet explorer", "IE" or "IE6" mentioned
> anywhere on the WHATWG.org site, so I'm not sure how we were supposed to
> get any impression that backwards compatibility meant anything other
> than backwards compatibility.

What do you mean by backwards compatibility, in the context of new
specifications like this?

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