Re: [whatwg] [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Scroll To Text Fragment
> On Oct 25, 2019, at 10:34 AM, Chris Wilson wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 6:35 PM Maciej Stachowiak wrote: > >> So on the whole, I don’t think Chrome engineers do as good a job as they >> could of actively soliciting signals. Members of the WebKit team at Apple >> are usually happy to provide an opinion if asked, or at least point to >> someone who can give an informed opinion. We also make sure to sync >> internally on things like this, to be able to give relatively official >> opinions. >> > > Seconding Yoav's question - what would be the best way for us to write into > the Blink process to do this? I think "quote any member of the Webkit team > you can get to make a statement in public" has multiple failure modes, so I > want to make sure we're pointing to (as you put it) relatively official > opinions. > > >> It’s possible that this is a Blink process problem, and that maybe “no >> signals” should be accompanied by a record of the lack of signal and/or >> attempt to solicit one, to remind Blinkers to actively ask. Assuming that’s >> the intention of the signals section. >> > > We just had a conversation on precisely this topic, and I expressed the > concern that embedding a record of our attempts to solicit opinions might > also be taken as shaming, which isn't our intent either. > > I think I'm hearing: > > 1. Blink needs to be more explicit about asking for signals. It would > be good to have those as repeatable channels at the various other platform > implementation organizations. > 2. Blink needs to be more intentional about notifying when features are > tracking to land, to put appropriate pressure on getting those signals > (positive or negative). > > It’s especially concerning that WICG does not require either multiple >> implementation experience (like W3C WGs do) or multiple implementor support >> (like WHATWG does). As a result, single-implementation specifications with >> no track to multi-engine implementation look exactly the same as incubation >> projects with multi-implementor support. > > I have to disagree with your concern, at least as an entry point. The > whole point of starting incubations is that they may not have multiple > implementers interested in prototyping -but an incubation is not the end > point. Certainly, as specs graduate from WICG incubations into an > appropriate WG (or the WHATWG) - their exit point from incubation - I would > expect multiple implementers to support and to be working on > implementations. What’s lacking here is the clear indication between the two. For example, how does one supposed to figure out this intent to ship email was based on a feature not being reviewed by Mozilla or Apple? There should have been a clear indication that this is a single vendor feature in the spec itself. I get that there needs to be some avenue to share ideas. But that avenue can’t be simultaneously something browser vendors use to claim that it’s a well accepted standard API. > "No track to multi-engine implementation" can be only a matter of time and > priority, also. I'm not against declaring more directly/publicly what > implementers are "supporting" (in quotes because there's not a precise > definition here) any given incubation, if we can come up with a way to do > so; would that help? > > sometimes we end up with specs using the WICG “Community Group Draft >> Report” logo while in an individual’s personal repo rather than in WICG. >> > > As Yoav said, I think this is a bug - much like putting the W3C editor > draft logo on a spec in a personal repo. Misleading, at best. > > >> I think these are process problems with WICG. > > > I am strongly against making a higher bar than "multiple independent > parties are interested" in order to start an incubation - because a bar > such as "must have multiple implementers supporting" would mean the vast > majority of incubations would be done effectively outside the community, in > personal or corporate repos, with no early contribution IP commitment or > outside engagement. > > That said, I'm happy to talk about process improvements we can do in the > WICG - for example, I proposed above that we enable implementers to tag > their support in WICG repos. Would that help? Is there something else we > should change? > > -Chris > (WICG co-chair, among other roles)
Re: [whatwg] [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Scroll To Text Fragment
On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 6:35 PM Maciej Stachowiak wrote: > So on the whole, I don’t think Chrome engineers do as good a job as they > could of actively soliciting signals. Members of the WebKit team at Apple > are usually happy to provide an opinion if asked, or at least point to > someone who can give an informed opinion. We also make sure to sync > internally on things like this, to be able to give relatively official > opinions. > Seconding Yoav's question - what would be the best way for us to write into the Blink process to do this? I think "quote any member of the Webkit team you can get to make a statement in public" has multiple failure modes, so I want to make sure we're pointing to (as you put it) relatively official opinions. > It’s possible that this is a Blink process problem, and that maybe “no > signals” should be accompanied by a record of the lack of signal and/or > attempt to solicit one, to remind Blinkers to actively ask. Assuming that’s > the intention of the signals section. > We just had a conversation on precisely this topic, and I expressed the concern that embedding a record of our attempts to solicit opinions might also be taken as shaming, which isn't our intent either. I think I'm hearing: 1. Blink needs to be more explicit about asking for signals. It would be good to have those as repeatable channels at the various other platform implementation organizations. 2. Blink needs to be more intentional about notifying when features are tracking to land, to put appropriate pressure on getting those signals (positive or negative). It’s especially concerning that WICG does not require either multiple > implementation experience (like W3C WGs do) or multiple implementor support > (like WHATWG does). As a result, single-implementation specifications with > no track to multi-engine implementation look exactly the same as incubation > projects with multi-implementor support. I have to disagree with your concern, at least as an entry point. The whole point of starting incubations is that they may not have multiple implementers interested in prototyping -but an incubation is not the end point. Certainly, as specs graduate from WICG incubations into an appropriate WG (or the WHATWG) - their exit point from incubation - I would expect multiple implementers to support and to be working on implementations. "No track to multi-engine implementation" can be only a matter of time and priority, also. I'm not against declaring more directly/publicly what implementers are "supporting" (in quotes because there's not a precise definition here) any given incubation, if we can come up with a way to do so; would that help? sometimes we end up with specs using the WICG “Community Group Draft > Report” logo while in an individual’s personal repo rather than in WICG. > As Yoav said, I think this is a bug - much like putting the W3C editor draft logo on a spec in a personal repo. Misleading, at best. > I think these are process problems with WICG. I am strongly against making a higher bar than "multiple independent parties are interested" in order to start an incubation - because a bar such as "must have multiple implementers supporting" would mean the vast majority of incubations would be done effectively outside the community, in personal or corporate repos, with no early contribution IP commitment or outside engagement. That said, I'm happy to talk about process improvements we can do in the WICG - for example, I proposed above that we enable implementers to tag their support in WICG repos. Would that help? Is there something else we should change? -Chris (WICG co-chair, among other roles)
Re: [whatwg] [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Scroll To Text Fragment
On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 4:04 AM 'Maciej Stachowiak' via blink-dev < blink-...@chromium.org> wrote: > > > > On Oct 24, 2019, at 1:49 PM, fantasai > wrote: > > > > On 10/9/19 8:10 PM, Nick Burris wrote: > >> Summary > >> Scroll To Text allows URLs to link to a piece of text in a webpage > rather than just linking to an existing element fragment. The motivating > use cases are to enable user sharing of specific content and allow > deep-linking references to information. > > > > So, like, this sounds conceptually like a great feature to have for the > Web. > > But this > > > >> Edge: No signals > >> Firefox: No signals < > https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/194> > >> Safari: No signals > > > > makes it seem like you really haven't put much effort into figuring out > where the other browser vendors stand on the issue. Given this is an Intent > to Ship, I interpret not having figured out where the other vendors stand > even at the coarse level of “excited to have spec, plan to implement”, > “supportive but not prioritizing; will accept patches”, or “opposed to the > feature in its current state” as not really caring what they think. You > have contacts into these organizations; I am sure you could solicit such > answers where there aren't any if you thought it was necessary. > > > > Google engineers keep asserting that, no, we really care about > standardization and moving the Web forward together with the other browser > vendors. Look at the processes we made to help us do that! But Web > standardization efforts have always tried to move forward on the basis of > consensus. Meanwhile the attitude here seems to be ”There was a template > for the positions of other browsers, a blank answer could be provided in > the template, nobody reviewing it cares that there was a blank answer, so > let's just ship the thing we (Google) want.” > > > > If this was a blank code review in your template, I imagine you would > try harder to get the reviewer's answer, and give a good explanation of > your attempts and their failure if indeed you could not solicit a response, > before asking for lgtm. > > I don’t think anyone at Apple was asked to provide a position. It’s true > this spec has been out there for a while, but there’s so many specs these > days that it’s hard to predict which will be up for an Intent to Ship next. > > I often see links to an Intent to Ship or Intent to Implement where Safari > is noted as “no public signals” or “no signals” but no one actually asked > us. Sometimes I even see this stated when we clearly said somewhere > (perhaps in an issue comment) that we think the feature is a bad idea, at > least as proposed. > > So on the whole, I don’t think Chrome engineers do as good a job as they > could of actively soliciting signals. Members of the WebKit team at Apple > are usually happy to provide an opinion if asked, or at least point to > someone who can give an informed opinion. We also make sure to sync > internally on things like this, to be able to give relatively official > opinions. > What would be the best way to solicit such feedback in a scalable way? No all engineers sending intents personally know someone on the WebKit team to ask for their opinion. Would opening an issue on WebKit's bugzilla be the right way to get such an opinion? > > It’s possible that this is a Blink process problem, and that maybe “no > signals” should be accompanied by a record of the lack of signal and/or > attempt to solicit one, to remind Blinkers to actively ask. Assuming that’s > the intention of the signals section. > > (This is not an opinion on the specific spec; it seems like a generally > good feature, but the fragment directive syntax and requirement for UAs to > strip it seems bound to cause interop problems with browsers that don’t > implement this spec.) > > > > > > Yoav Weiss wrote: > > > >> When it comes to venue, the current spec's processing seems to be > mostly monkey-patching the HTML and URL specs, indicating that WHATWG is > probably the right venue for this to graduate to. At the same time, landing > features in WHATWG specs require multi-engine commitment, and looking at > Mozilla's 2.5-months-old standards position issue doesn't really indicate > implementer commitment, or anything at all. From a practical standpoint, > it's clearer and easier for the spec to live as a standalone document > rather than a WHATWG PR, while we're waiting for multi-engine commitment. > >> But, that in no means preclude collaboration. The spec is in WICG, > which was built specifically to enable multi-vendor collaboration when > incubating new ideas. I'm sure everyone would be thrilled to have your > feedback directly there, to make sure we get this right. > > > > I would like to point out a couple things: > > > > 1. WICG is explicitly billing itself an incubation venue, not a > standardization venue. At the point you're planning to ship a feature, I > think that qualifies as beyond
Re: [whatwg] [blink-dev] Intent to Ship: Scroll To Text Fragment
On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 10:59 AM 'David Bokan' via blink-dev wrote: > The kind of feedback we received here would have been wonderful to have > several weeks ago. What should we be doing to get to this step earlier? For WHATWG, PRs against standards tend to help as they require review, implementer commitments, and adequate test coverage. And editors will provide guidance for all of those.
