[html4all] Interview: HTML 5 Editor Ian Hickson discusses features, pain points, adoption rate, and more

[Robert J Burns]

Ian is a strange. From the interview:
<q>

If you could go back in time to the original HTML spec, what is one  
thing that you would change in it to make the Web a better place today?

Defining error handling from day one has got to be the most important  
change that I would ask Tim to make if I could speak to him then. I  
think we could have avoided a huge amount of the tag soup mess we have  
now if we had just defined simple error handling from the get-go.

</q>

Defining error handling from day one would not "avoid" tag soup, it  
just would make the handling of tag soup consistent.

To me, the most damaging decisions of HTML historically were:

  • allowing P elements to be closed implicitly (we now cannot change  
their content model to allow lists, block quotes and inline tables)
  • getting away from visual GUI editors (the first HTML editor was  
visual, but it only ran on NextSTEP)
  • UAs deciding to not support SGML DTDs since that's what prevents  
us from changing anything about the content models

So, of the three, only the first relates to the language itself (and  
wouldn't be a problem except for the following two items). The other  
two are not due to the language. Also with the use of visual GUI  
editors and SGML adherent UAs, the need for error recovery would have  
been much less important.

Take care,
Rob

On Aug 28, 2008, at 7:50 PM, Laura Carlson wrote:

> "In this interview, HTML 5 Editor Ian Hickson discusses his favorite
> features, the features he thinks might be most contentious, the pain
> points he expects HTML 5 will address, and much more. He also tells
> what he would change in the original HTML spec if he could go back in
> time."
>
> http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=718
>
> Best Regards,
> Laura
> -- 
> Laura L. Carlson
>
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