[whatwg] number-related feedback

[Ian Hickson]

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008, Christoph Päper wrote:
> Ian Hickson (2008-03-23):
> > On Tue, 18 Mar 2008, Christoph Päper wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > a <span>valid non-negative integer</span> greater than zero.
> > > 
> > > Isn't that the description of a valid positive integer? If that term 
> > > is not used or defined yet, why not?
> > 
> > Because "positive" is confusing to people. Some people (including me) 
> > think that 0 is positive.
> 
> Sure, but I thought "non-negative integer" was used to make it clear 
> that zero was included. Thus for the (fewer) instances like this one, 
> where zero is excluded, "positive integer" becomes available. You only 
> need to say this once in 3.2.3., which is linked each time any way, and 
> thereby improve readability. You could of course adopt the other 
> definition of 'positive' instead.

I hesitate to do this because while non-negative is clearly 0-or-higher, 
positive is not as clear to everyone, and I expect I would introduce far 
too many errors in the spec if I did it that way.


> > > Why can |rowspan|, unlike |colspan|, be 0, but is then also 
> > > normalised to 1?
> > 
> > It's not normalised to 1, is it? I don't understand.
> 
> It is not, I misinterpreted this sentence:
> 
>   Its default value, which must be used if parsing the attribute as a
>   non-negative integer returns an error, is also 1.

The default value is 1 because otherwise not including the attribute would 
mean the cell filled the whole table each time.

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