[whatwg] A Quick Introduction to HTML 5

[Ian Hickson]

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Sam Dutton wrote:
>
> What's the audience for this section?  (Apologies if this has been 
> covered elsewhere.)
> 
> If the intended readers are new to HTML, as implied, then technical 
> words and concepts shouldn't be introduced without explanation.
> 
> For example:
> 
>    >> The tree formed by an HTML document in this way is turned into a 
> DOM tree when parsed. <<
> 
> DOM has not been explained at this point and won't mean anything to a 
> novice. (Neither will 'tree' or 'parsed', I guess.)

I've introduced "DOM tree" more gently. "tree" and "parsed" are basic 
computer science terms, if the reader doesn't understand those then the 
rest of the document is going to be so far out of their reach I don't know 
that it's worth introducing the concepts here.


>    >> This DOM tree can then be manipulated from scripts. <<
> 
> Might be good to explain what 'scripts' means. (Would it hurt to say 
> something like 'scripting languages such as JavaScript'? Still a bit 
> vague.)

Done.


>    >> Since DOM trees are the "live" representation of an HTML document
> <<
> 
> What does 'live' mean in this context? 

I've rephrased that paragraph to avoid the word.


>    >> ... instead of the serialisation described above. Each element in
> the DOM tree is represented by an object, and thus objects have APIs ...
> <<
> 
> Again, novices won't understand 'serialisation', 'represented by an
> object' or 'APIs'.

I've replaced serialisation with markup. Not sure what I can do about 
"object" and "APIs".

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