[whatwg] comments on Web Forms 2.0

[Josh Aas]

Hello,

I have read your Web Forms 2.0 draft, but I didn't have time to  
comment on much past section 2.5. Not too much to say anyway. I  
haven't ever submitted comments on a spec before, so I hope this kind  
of thing is what you're looking for.

- You use spacing in "HTML 4" inconsistently. Sometimes there is  
space between "HTML" and "4" and sometimes not. See the first two  
paragraphs of the introduction.

- Section 1.1: "browsers prevalent in 2004" - could be more specific  
given that the number of decently conforming HTML 4 and DOM  
implementations can probably be counted on one hand (Gecko, KHTML,  
IE, Opera). This could better set the bar in terms of what is  
considered to be an acceptable implementation.

- Section 1.2: perhaps "strong market *demand*" instead of "need".  
"need" is hard to justify, demand is not. And it sounds better.

- Section 1.8: digital signatures: can you include a list of patent  
numbers you are concerned about? If you don't do that, you're  
significantly adding to the amount of work somebody has to do to  
consider the problem.

- Section 2.2: hidden: "An arbitrary string that is not normally  
displayed to the user." Under what circumstances might a conforming  
UA display hidden input to a user? The HTML 4 spec makes no mention  
of such a circumstance.

- It is not clear to me why we need a month and week extension to the  
input element. Seems like it only complicates implementation and  
gives people who deal with dates more rows in the matrix of things  
they need to be able to handle. You can easily express both with date  
and datetime. Furthermore, figuring out a date's week # is simple.  
Even more so for months. I'd just think we should think hard before  
duplicating avenues for the same information.

-Josh Aas
Software Engineer
Mozilla Corporation