[whatwg] HTML 5 drag and drop feedback

[Ian Hickson]

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009, Francisco Tolmasky wrote:
> > 
> > Yes, that is a neat solution. However, it is still the case that at 
> > this time we should not add new features, otherwise we might get too 
> > far ahead of the implementations, and the quality of implementations 
> > will go down.
> 
> Since I am new to the list I'm not sure how to interpret the context of 
> this type of answer: in other words, does this mean "wait until next 
> month" or "wait until HTML 6".

It's hard to tell -- it depends on how fast implementations line up on 
what HTML5 already says.


> Similarly, if it was determined that a sufficient number of browsers 
> implemented this existing feature to a satisfactory degree, would that 
> itself be enough to request this addition again?

It's not just this feature -- for example, <canvas> is pretty well 
implemented, but we're not adding new features to it at the moment, 
because browser implementors jump at the chance to implement anything I 
add to canvas, instead of fixing other bugs. So each time we add a canvas 
feature, we delay the time until other things are implemented well.


> As you stated, both IE and Safari have this thing pretty nailed down for 
> quite a while now already.

Both IE and Safari are quite buggy when it comes to drag-and-drop 
actually, at least compared to what the spec says (especially IE).


> Firefox has done a considerable amount of work to implement this as well 
> and at the very least advertises it as a "complete" feature. Is there 
> some way to measure the quality of implementations?

We'll need a test suite.


> > Decisions are made based on their technical merits, it doesn't matter 
> > how many people support it. :-)
> 
> Also being new to the list I feel compelled to ask whether this is some 
> sort of meme or inside joke as I have seen it more than once and is 
> clearly self-contradictory.

Neither.

As an extreme example: if a thousand people want the HTML5 spec to include 
an element that executes arbitrary author-provided inline assembler, and 
one person points out that that would allow for remote code execution 
attacks, then the one person wins.

An example where this actually happened: lots of people think we should 
include the longdesc="" attribute in HTML5. However, we did some research, 
and found that it isn't a technically good solution according to the 
collected data. So we don't have longdesc="".

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