Subject: Re: suggest validator prefer URI to FPI - msg#00171

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Re: suggest validator prefer URI to FPI

Le mar 17/08/2004 à 16:23, Bjoern Hoehrmann a écrit : > The only reason I have heard in this thread to change the behavior of > the W3C MarkUp Validator in this regard is consistency with validating > XML processors that behave differently. Really? The main reason I've seen in this thread is to warn the user when she uses a bogus or inconsistent doctype; that's a user feature, not a theoretical one. > I consider consistency with > previous versions of the Validator, similar tools and services, common > user expectations and reduced development and maintenance cost more > important and I am thus opposed to such changes. That's a perfectly reasonable viewpoint; as for myself, I'm a bit more cautious with backwards consistency, since it could be used to refuse any kind of change to the Validator. > >The Validator would notice that the System ID URI is not the one it > >associates by default to the FPI; depending on the feasibility of the > >different approaches, it could: > > How would it notice that exactly? I imagine that there would be a catalog of FPI bound to System Ids; when validating a document, the Validator would absolutize the System ID, and see whether it matches the one associated to the FPI. (As I developed below, there is a question of whether it should check for the equality of DTDs if they don't match, but that's probably not easily doable) > >1. simply emit a warning saying that it doesn't know whether the System > >ID matches the FPI, and lists the "officials" System IDs bound to the > >FPI > > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2000Feb/thread.html#52 Quite an interesting reading, thanks! > Authors are deliberately and explicitly allowed to do that, it is > inappropriate for the Validator to suggest anything else and I am > afraid even if it is made an "info" users might be confused about it. Do you seriously believe that people that are going to put consciously a different system identifier would be confused by such a note? > >2. download and cache the DTD, and "compare" it to the official DTD - > >I've no idea how feasible it is to compare DTDs though - emitting an > >error if they don't match, and validating using the downloaded DTD > > That sounds like way too much trouble for a feature of essentially very > little value. Yup, I'm fairly confident this would be an overkill. I was suggesting it just in case it was not :) Thanks for your detailed answer, Do -- Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/ W3C/ERCIM mailto:dom@xxxxxx signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message =?ISO-8859-1?Q?num=E9riquement?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?_sign=E9e=2E?=

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Re: suggest validator prefer URI to FPI

Le jeu 19/08/2004 à 15:46, Bjoern Hoehrmann a écrit : > >Really? The main reason I've seen in this thread is to warn the user > >when she uses a bogus or inconsistent doctype; that's a user feature, > >not a theoretical one. > > I am opposed to change how the Validator locates a DTD from FPIs/SIs, OK. > what it should do in order to figure out whether FPI and SI disagree > in some sense and how it should behave in that case in terms of feed- > back to the user is a different question. That's the one that interests me, FWIW. > >I imagine that there would be a catalog of FPI bound to System Ids; when > >validating a document, the Validator would absolutize the System ID, and > >see whether it matches the one associated to the FPI. > > http://validator.w3.org/sgml-lib/xml.soc kindly demonstrates that > maintenance of the existing catalogs is quite difficult already... A very valid concern, indeed; I think this shows the cost of having 2 conflicting identifications systems in use, but that doesn't help practically speaking. > >Do you seriously believe that people that are going to put consciously a > >different system identifier would be confused by such a note? > > It would not surprise me much, but that's only part of the story, it is > common that people use the Validator to validate other people's web site > and such users are much more likely to get confused. If the Validator > generates more noise for page X than for page Y, page X is less "valid" > then page Y, that's a quite common "confusion". Hmm... To me, it would be of the same kind as what you get today when the validator gives a warning due to a mismatch between the HTTP header charset parameter and the encoding specified in the document, which I haven't seen generate much confusion; said otherwise, I'm pretty sure there is a way to formulate such a warning so that it doesn't generate that much confusion. But your experience on the matter probably makes you a better judge of this :) Dom -- Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/ W3C/ERCIM mailto:dom@xxxxxx signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message =?ISO-8859-1?Q?num=E9riquement?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?_sign=E9e=2E?=

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Re: suggest validator prefer URI to FPI

Le mar 17/08/2004 à 16:23, Bjoern Hoehrmann a écrit : > The only reason I have heard in this thread to change the behavior of > the W3C MarkUp Validator in this regard is consistency with validating > XML processors that behave differently. Really? The main reason I've seen in this thread is to warn the user when she uses a bogus or inconsistent doctype; that's a user feature, not a theoretical one. > I consider consistency with > previous versions of the Validator, similar tools and services, common > user expectations and reduced development and maintenance cost more > important and I am thus opposed to such changes. That's a perfectly reasonable viewpoint; as for myself, I'm a bit more cautious with backwards consistency, since it could be used to refuse any kind of change to the Validator. > >The Validator would notice that the System ID URI is not the one it > >associates by default to the FPI; depending on the feasibility of the > >different approaches, it could: > > How would it notice that exactly? I imagine that there would be a catalog of FPI bound to System Ids; when validating a document, the Validator would absolutize the System ID, and see whether it matches the one associated to the FPI. (As I developed below, there is a question of whether it should check for the equality of DTDs if they don't match, but that's probably not easily doable) > >1. simply emit a warning saying that it doesn't know whether the System > >ID matches the FPI, and lists the "officials" System IDs bound to the > >FPI > > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2000Feb/thread.html#52 Quite an interesting reading, thanks! > Authors are deliberately and explicitly allowed to do that, it is > inappropriate for the Validator to suggest anything else and I am > afraid even if it is made an "info" users might be confused about it. Do you seriously believe that people that are going to put consciously a different system identifier would be confused by such a note? > >2. download and cache the DTD, and "compare" it to the official DTD - > >I've no idea how feasible it is to compare DTDs though - emitting an > >error if they don't match, and validating using the downloaded DTD > > That sounds like way too much trouble for a feature of essentially very > little value. Yup, I'm fairly confident this would be an overkill. I was suggesting it just in case it was not :) Thanks for your detailed answer, Do -- Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/ W3C/ERCIM mailto:dom@xxxxxx signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message =?ISO-8859-1?Q?num=E9riquement?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?_sign=E9e=2E?=

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Re: suggest validator prefer URI to FPI

Le jeu 19/08/2004 à 15:46, Bjoern Hoehrmann a écrit : > >Really? The main reason I've seen in this thread is to warn the user > >when she uses a bogus or inconsistent doctype; that's a user feature, > >not a theoretical one. > > I am opposed to change how the Validator locates a DTD from FPIs/SIs, OK. > what it should do in order to figure out whether FPI and SI disagree > in some sense and how it should behave in that case in terms of feed- > back to the user is a different question. That's the one that interests me, FWIW. > >I imagine that there would be a catalog of FPI bound to System Ids; when > >validating a document, the Validator would absolutize the System ID, and > >see whether it matches the one associated to the FPI. > > http://validator.w3.org/sgml-lib/xml.soc kindly demonstrates that > maintenance of the existing catalogs is quite difficult already... A very valid concern, indeed; I think this shows the cost of having 2 conflicting identifications systems in use, but that doesn't help practically speaking. > >Do you seriously believe that people that are going to put consciously a > >different system identifier would be confused by such a note? > > It would not surprise me much, but that's only part of the story, it is > common that people use the Validator to validate other people's web site > and such users are much more likely to get confused. If the Validator > generates more noise for page X than for page Y, page X is less "valid" > then page Y, that's a quite common "confusion". Hmm... To me, it would be of the same kind as what you get today when the validator gives a warning due to a mismatch between the HTTP header charset parameter and the encoding specified in the document, which I haven't seen generate much confusion; said otherwise, I'm pretty sure there is a way to formulate such a warning so that it doesn't generate that much confusion. But your experience on the matter probably makes you a better judge of this :) Dom -- Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/ W3C/ERCIM mailto:dom@xxxxxx signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message =?ISO-8859-1?Q?num=E9riquement?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?_sign=E9e=2E?=