[whatwg] Fwd: Discussing WebSRT and alternatives/improvements

[Anne van Kesteren]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:43:01 +0200, Silvia Pfeiffer  
<silviapfeiffer1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's a good approach and will reduce the need for breaking
> backwards-compatibility. In an xml-based format that need is 0, while  
> with a text format where the structure is ad-hoc, that need can never be  
> reduced to 0. That's what I am concerned about and that's why I think we  
> need a version identifier. If we end up never using/changing the version  
> identifier, the
> better so. But I'd much rather we have it now and can identify what
> specification a file adheres to than not being able to do so later.

XML is also text-based. ;-) But more seriously, if we ever need to make  
changes that would completely break backwards compatibility we should just  
use a new format rather than fit it into an existing one. That is the  
approach we have for most formats (and APIs) on the web (CSS, HTML,  
XMLHttpRequest) and so far a version identifier need (or need for a  
replacement) has not yet arisen.

Might be worth reading through some of:  
http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/40318/issues-4-84-objection-poll/results


> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 7:49 PM, Philip Jägenstedt  
> <philipj at opera.com>wrote:
>> That would make text/srt and text/websrt synonymous, which is kind of
>> pointless.
>
> No, it's only pointless if you are a browser vendor. For everyone else  
> it is a huge advantage to be able to choose between a guaranteed simple  
> format and a complex format with all the bells and whistles.

But it is not complex at all and everyone else supports most of the  
extensions the WebSRT format has.


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
http://annevankesteren.nl/