It is effectively impossible to review the review draft of HTML because it does not link to changes since the previous version.
I hoped to see a list of changes, or a link to one, at https://html.spec.whatwg.org/review-drafts/2020-01/#w3c-rec however it is absent from there. I understand that:
- the MOU with WHATWG omits any requirement for a list of changes in the draft publication format document, and that
- the Process does not require the list of changes,
but for non-WHATWG specs, where pubrules apply, pubrules does require a changelist, for good reason.
Why can't I review without the changelist?
A Process-required feature of a CR is that it contains exit criteria. As per the MOU, implementation reporting is done on a per-feature level with data in the "margin" (quotes because there is no margin when I look at it). The per-feature labelling of implementation does not consistently reference any tests, but does sometimes reference, say, caniuse.
Since this is a snapshot including a bunch of changes since the last snapshot, it makes sense that all those changes should have associated implementation reports, and it is in line with normal W3C practice to establish those implementations by means of tests. The MOU suggests that there should be tests in wpt.
Therefore I should be able to traverse the document, find the new or changed features, and see the tests and implementations for each of them.
This is not possible because the new or changed features are not distinguishable from the very large set of pre-existing features.
It is possible to look outside the document and find the list of changes, for example at #8, but I only know that because someone told me.
What would a workable solution be?
Since it is possible to create the list of changes, perhaps that list could be used as the basis for a changelist document and we could propose to WHATWG that we publish that document and they include a link to it in the snapshot W3C Recommendation section?
I don't know how much additional work it would be for the changelist document to link to the specific changed sections in the snapshot itself, but that would make traversal and review possible by a human, which is at least a nice-to-have, I'm thinking.
It is effectively impossible to review the review draft of HTML because it does not link to changes since the previous version.
I hoped to see a list of changes, or a link to one, at https://html.spec.whatwg.org/review-drafts/2020-01/#w3c-rec however it is absent from there. I understand that:
but for non-WHATWG specs, where pubrules apply, pubrules does require a changelist, for good reason.
Why can't I review without the changelist?
A Process-required feature of a CR is that it contains exit criteria. As per the MOU, implementation reporting is done on a per-feature level with data in the "margin" (quotes because there is no margin when I look at it). The per-feature labelling of implementation does not consistently reference any tests, but does sometimes reference, say, caniuse.
Since this is a snapshot including a bunch of changes since the last snapshot, it makes sense that all those changes should have associated implementation reports, and it is in line with normal W3C practice to establish those implementations by means of tests. The MOU suggests that there should be tests in wpt.
Therefore I should be able to traverse the document, find the new or changed features, and see the tests and implementations for each of them.
This is not possible because the new or changed features are not distinguishable from the very large set of pre-existing features.
It is possible to look outside the document and find the list of changes, for example at #8, but I only know that because someone told me.
What would a workable solution be?
Since it is possible to create the list of changes, perhaps that list could be used as the basis for a changelist document and we could propose to WHATWG that we publish that document and they include a link to it in the snapshot W3C Recommendation section?
I don't know how much additional work it would be for the changelist document to link to the specific changed sections in the snapshot itself, but that would make traversal and review possible by a human, which is at least a nice-to-have, I'm thinking.