2004-03-05 10:40 UTC W3C Technical Plenary 2004
All this week I was at the W3C Plenary in Mandelieu La Napoule, in France. (Saying it's in Mandelieu La Napoule is a neat trick for those people who don't want to tell their companies that they are going to Cannes lest their management think they are using their travel budget for fun. The hotel is about 4 meters from the official edge of Cannes.)
Some choice quotes that I've heard so far (left anonymous to protect the guilty...):
So in my right hand I have a content declaration...
So if we dropped it. Would they lynch us?Yes.
The other solution is to give it an RDF property—(laughter erupts)
So the government normalised your name?
Hard day tomorrow?Hard? No. It's Semantic Web IG.
*bzzz, bzzzz* *bzzz, bzzzz*
Our bathroom is ringing!
Wednesday was the middle day of the Technical Plenary, where instead of working group meetings everyone gets together in one big room and watches presentations and panels and asks questions. In the past this has sometimes been a lot of fun, but in this particular instance I found most of the sessions somewhat tame. It's much more fun when they pick very controversial topics.
One of the sessions was on Writing Test Suites For Your Working Group (or some such, I forget the exact name) and I was one of the panelists. For my slides I used a document Tantek originally published back in April 2002: the test suite documentation for the CSS Working Group. This document was obviously never written with slides in mind, so I applied the following stylesheet:
* { margin: 0 ! important; }
h2, h3 { font-size: 3em; }
p, dl, ol, ul, span, #abstract, #contents, #intro,
#conventions, #history, #usingtestsuites, #cover,
#getting, #next-and, #test-content, #something,
#sooner, #atomictests { display: none; }
.head p, .head dl, .head ol, .head ul { display: block; }
.head span { display: inline; }
.head dd { padding-left: 50px; }
.copyright { padding-top: 1.25em; }
hr { margin-top: 0.75em ! important; }
h1 { padding: 2em 0 0.75em; }
h2 { padding-top: 3em; page-break-before: always; }
h3 { padding: 5em 0 1em; page-break-before: always; }
#validtests + p { display: block; text-indent: -500em; }
#validtests + p a { text-indent: 0; font-size: 2em; float: left;
padding: 0.5em; content: 'Suite #' counter(suite, decimal-leading-zero);
counter-increment: suite; }
a[href="http://validator.w3.org/"],
a[href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/"] { display: none; }
#testthetech { width: 80%; }
#incremental { font-variant: small-caps; text-align: center;
letter-spacing: 0.12em; text-indent: -0.8em;
padding-top: 9em; content: 'Fin'; }
[lang=tr] { content: 'Tantek \C7 elik'; }
However, since I couldn't change the document to add this
stylesheet (the document is on the W3C Web site) I instead wrote a
small little javascript: URI that dynamically added this stylesheet,
using the DOM and an embedded data: URI, to the document, when I
followed it (which I did my pasting the following into Opera):
javascript:void(function(){var e = document.createElement('link');e.rel='style
sheet';e.href='data:text/css,*{margin:0!important}h2,h3{font-size:3em}p,dl,ol,
ul,span,%23abstract,%23contents,%23intro,%23conventions,%23history,%23usingtes
tsuites,%23cover,%23getting,%23next-and,%23test-content,%23something,%23sooner
,%23atomictests{display:none}.head p,.head dl,.head ol,.head ul{display:block}
.head span{display:inline}.head dd{padding-left: 50px}.copyright{padding-top:1
.25em;}hr{margin-top:0.75em!important}h1{padding:2em 0 0.75em;}h2{padding-top:
3em;page-break-before:always}h3{padding:5em 0 1em;page-break-before:always}%23
validtests+p{display:block;text-indent:-500em}%23validtests+p a{text-indent:0;
font-size:2em;float:left;padding:0.5em;content:\'Suite %23\' counter(suite, de
cimal-leading-zero);counter-increment:suite}a[href="http://validator.w3.org/"]
,a[href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/"]{display:none}%23testthetech{wid
th:80%25}%23incremental{font-variant:small-caps;text-align:center;letter-spaci
ng:0.12em;text-indent:-0.8em;padding-top:9em;content:\'Fin\'}[lang=tr]{content
:\'Tantek %5CC7 elik\'}';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(
e);}())Throw in Opera's projection mode and *tada*, instant presentation!
Also on Wednesday, we have the Birds Of a Feather lunch tables. This is where people sign up to sit at tables with assigned topics, and have a friendly chat to see what other people think about something or other.
During this lunch I accidentally joined the SVG working group. I don't mean I accidentally sat at the wrong table and found myself sitting with lots of SVG people. I mean I accidentally became an SVG working group member. I had no idea that sort of thing could happen during meal times. I'll endeavor to be more careful in future.
This brings the total number of official W3C-related activities I'm involved with to four: the CSS Working Group, the SVG Working Group, the Linking task force, and the Binding task force.
I've also come away from this week with a bunch of new and renewed action items. Expect new releases of the CSS3 Generated and Replaced Content module and the CSS3 Lists module to come out "soon".
All in all, a very productive week.