[whatwg] One document or two?

[Ian Hickson]

On Fri, 25 May 2007, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:
> >
> > It's been considered and might even happen. It's a MASSIVE amount of 
> > work, though. For example, it's also not always clear how to 
> > categorise the text. What would you do with:
> >
> >   <p>If a <code>dl</code> element contains only <code>dd</code>
> >   elements, then it consists of one group with values but no names,
> >   and the document is non-conforming.</p>
> >
> > Should that be shown in the cut down "author" version?
> 
> Yes. Everything that tells authors how to ensure conformity should be 
> presented to them. I think it's mainly the stuff that tells UAs how to 
> handle non-conforming documents that authors generally don't need.

But the second line quoted above is a UA thing. It's nothing to do with 
authors. So it's not clear to me that it is as simple as you say.


> Btw, by taking the CSS approach (one spec; different presentations), 
> during the spec's development you could use a Style Sheet that merely 
> sets content apart, not outright hide it. Just like Simon did. It seems 
> likely to me that, because that makes this so visible, people will 
> provide plenty of feedback when something should be shown to/hidden from 
> authors.
> 
> I don't think this needs to be pixel-perfect, definitely not from the 
> start. Begin by marking what is obviously not needed by authors. From 
> there it will get clear how much more detailed this should be done, if 
> it all.

It's something that's on the cards. However, it's not a priority, at least 
not for me. There are several "meta" things I'd like to do to the spec 
(like have the sections be labelled for how stable they are, have the spec 
link to test cases, have the spec say what's implemented) before I start 
looking at paragraph-level annotations.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'