Re: Why Doesn't IE5 use the DTD to Validate?

Subject: Re: Why Doesn't IE5 use the DTD to Validate?
From: Chris Lilley <chris@xxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 20:14:20 +0200

Didier PH Martin wrote:

> Here is the solution Chris W3C should include the authors with each
> specification to provide additionnal tacit knowledge not contained in the
> specs. :-))).

I believe this is politely termed an out of band reference. Or, perhaps,
a publishing opportunity.

Actually, once such a missing piece has been identified and agreed upon
then

a) if it was the original intention, is editorial, and is one valid
interpretation of what was  actually said, then it should go in the
eratta and eventually in a new edition of the original version

b) if it is a design change, it should go in a new document version

> However, your point about considering the inclusion of the ELEMENT in the
> DTD as a switch indicating validation is a good idea. Why not write and
> publish a note 

Because I need to see what others say about it first. In particular, I
think James agreed with me but I have not seen comments from Tim, Jean
or CMSQ as to whether this is correct.

> so that now, implementers could get access to this "tacit"
> knowledge and then transform it into "explicit" knowledge.

A better way to do this is to add it to the eratta or to a new spec,
depending on what the WG feels is the best course. A Note has no real
status (its justa concret record of an idea), and cannot alter  the
conformance clauses of a Recommendation.

> Thanks in advance
> if you do that, it will be more profitable than saying that Microsoft is
> wrong. 

Well, if they (or anyone else) are wrong then I will still say so.
However, I checked their site and it does not claim that IE5 is a
validating parser, that I can see, so no false claims have beem made and
the only confusion is with folks who were using the beta (*which is
still a large poulation, of course).

> At least it will prevent us to do the same mistake and W3C will learn
> the difference between "tacit" and "explicit" knowledge.

We aren't all joined at the hip, you know ;-) so tell that to the
document editors, not me. But, I have been editor of documents that were
later found to have ambiguities, so I'm not claiming perfection nor
decrying the lack of it in others.

And W3C does recognise the need to staighten these things out as they
are discovered. Its called "post-Recommendation work" or, more
informally "care and feeding of recs".

--
Chris



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