Call four comments 4 is out (Was: [whatwg] Web Forms 2.0 submission to W3C)

[James Graham]

Dean Jackson wrote:

>
> On 13 Apr 2005, at 19:31, Ian Hickson wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 13 Apr 2005, Dean Jackson wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> Ok. Could you provide us with a list of features you believe need use
>>>> cases listed? That would be really helpful in creating such a
>>>> document.
>>>
>>>
>>> All of them.
>>
>>
>> That's never going to happen, just like the XHTML working group has 
>> never
>> published a document with use cases for all their features.
>> Ditto the SVG group,
>
>
> The SVG group has published requirements documents for its
> features. So has the CDF Group, which you participate in.
> Sure, the requirements documents don't always get updated as
> often as the specification and they are not completely
> comprehensive, but it does help the reader understand
> where you're coming from.

So there's a difference between a "requirments document" and a detailed 
writeup of use cases for individual features. It seems to me that two 
documents are required:
A brief end-user oriented document explaining what WF2 is and the 
general class of problems it aims to solve (i.e. adding functionality to 
web forms without breaking today's browsers). This should then introduce 
some of the most important new features (new input types, the repetition 
model, etc.) and give sample uses. The second document should be a 
longer "best practice" document. This would aim to explain (at a level 
appropriate to anyone with a modest knowledge of HTML/DOM) what the new 
things are and how to use the them successfully (as well as what not to 
do). The important difference between such a document and the spec is 
that it should focus on problem solving not on details needed by 
implementors. Being shorter than the spec it will be read by many more 
people.

Obviously Hixie and the WHATWG are unlikely to be able to write both of 
these documents. It would be nice if the first document were written by 
the WG and we set a wiki or somesuch up to allow a collaborative attack 
on the second.

-- 
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