Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
I only check in to the doings of the HTML WG at the W3C once a week.
Most of my time is spent on my new book, Learning Node. Frankly, Node has been a refreshing change from the smoky labyrinth which is the HTML5 spec process. I’d check in with the Working Group less often, but I still hope to provide at least some moral support for those still slogging away.
You all do realize that the battle over longdesc is still being fought, don’t you? Oh, there’s other new battles, including some interesting ones over a new path object added to the Canvas2D spec (Eh? What?), and encrypted media (very long discussion about this one), but longdesc still remains the perennial favorite.
The issue now is keeping any decision about longdesc separate from decisions being made about ARIA attributes. At least, I think this is the issue. What caught my eye today was something Sam Ruby wrote to the group:
My biggest concern is resolving ISSUE-30. By that I mean done. There
may be Formal Objections, but there won’t be new information, so at that
point this Working Group is done subject to Director approval.Put another way, I have zero interest in a provisional decision that
would likely lead to a reopening based on new information. At the
present time, I see two potential candidates for new information. One
is the subject of issue 204. The other would be somebody putting
forward a spec for something akin to an aria-describedAt attribute.The reason I state that is that at the present time I see wide support
for the idea of obsoleting longdesc once there is a viable and clearly
superior replacement. Note: some may not believe that a viable and
clearly superior replacement is possible. Others may not believe that
such is imminent. But I worded what I said carefully to include such
people’s opinion.So the task we face is eliminating all alternatives.
I can agree that resolving this issue, completely, should be a goal. However, Sam demands that those who support longdesc provide a surety that there can be no better alternative in the future, and that’s just impossible. There is no surety for any component or element of the HTML5 specification. I have no doubts that, in some future time, better and improved replacements can be found for all HTML5 elements, attributes, and various and assorted sundry APIs.
(Simple elimination comes to mind as a way of improving some of the new additions.)
No other element or attribute in HTML has undergone such rigid opposition, and such rigorous support. I would feel better, much better, about HTML5 if any of the new objects, elements, and attributes received even a tenth of the inspection and discussion that has been afforded to lowly, simple little longdesc. Objects, such as Path.
And now, the gauntlet has been tossed: longdesc is our princess in the tower, the W3C the wicked sorceress, and the demand has been made that either a knight in shining armour rescue the poor damsel or she be dragon kibble.
Eliminate all alternatives to longdesc? How many years do we have, Sam?