SV: DOM 2 and .NET

[Dimitris Dimitriadis <dimitris.dimitriadis@improve.se>]

My two cents, just for the record (comments inlined):

In the DOM Test Suites Framework (http://www.w3.org/DOM/Test/) It is
precisely our ambition to write as comprehensive a collection of tests as
possible, in order to help implementors keep track of their product's
support for the various DOM specifications. 

As the DOM TS is a publically developed framework, in which we want to
guarantee the relevance and correctness of the tests, I kindly invite anyone
interested in taking part in both developing tests and helping to ensure
that they indeed test relevant parts of the specification; please visit the
link above for details.

/D. Dimitriadis, W3C DOM WG representative to the DOM TS framework

---

Now, if we are talking about the *other* DOM (the one used for
manipulating HTML in a web browser) that predates XML DOM, it is another
story.  There is the Microsoft DHTML DOM, then in IE5+ there is partial
support for W3C DHTML DOM, and same issue in Netscape -- in Netscape 6
there is partial support for W3C DOM that is partially disjoint from the
support in IE5+, and previous versions of Netscape have a DOM that is
Netscape specific.  Basically, it is so complicated to write
cross-platform DHTML that many people would rather just use Flash.

[dd] I'd say that there is only _one_ (official) HTML DOM, namely the W3C
HTML DOM. Is has drawn from the experiences made in DHTML, but is _not_ a
DHTML DOM and does not predate the W3C XML DOM as it forms part of the same
specification
(http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-DOM-Level-1-19981001/level-one-html.html).

> money just to take the responsibility of an open web on my shoulders,
> because vendors don't play fair. These vendors are actually making my
> life harder. They offer me non-compliant ways to make my work easy.
Wow.
> And if I choose them, I either have to promote only their side of the
> bank, or work twice as hard to promote all. They are all blackmailing
> me, while earning from me for pushing their platform.

This is perhaps an unfair characterization.  You can think of
standards/specs as treaties between competitors (individuals and
companies) for the benefit of the people who use their products.  In
other words, what makes it into the spec is what all of the competitors
can agree on.  It's unrealistic to think that a spec or standard could
list every feature that you might ever want.  It's equally unrealistic
to think that the competitors sitting around the standardization table
would all agree on every single feature that they think their users will
want.  Competitors disagree on certain things, and different users want
different things (and that is a very good thing by the way).  So the
spec just documents the lowest common denominator that everyone can
agree upon.

[dd] I think Manos' point (and many other developers' with him) is that they
do not care particularly about politics (as far as agreeing on subsets and
lowest common denominators is concerned); they would rahter have a
particular set of features they could presuppose would be supported on
different platforms that in turn allows for the portability of their code
(at least that is what most comments I receive in my work point towards).