on the philosophical aspects of a specification

[Seumas Mac Uilleachan]

Aristotle Pagaltzis wrote:

> * Michel Fortin <michel.fortin at michelf.com> [2008-03-05 05:10]:

>   

>> A better question is what to do with this:

>>

>>     *hello **dear* boy**

>>     

>

> That’s a very good question. Here’s a counterquestion: what does

> a human reader see in that text? Based on the visual apperance I

> think I would make it translate to this:

>

>     <em>hello <strong>dear</strong> boy</em>

>

> Really.

>

> Regards,

>   

See, now that's not at all what I inferred from this case. If we infer 
different meanings here then there are undoubtedly many cases we can't 
even think of that would be inferred differently. How is the spec 
supposed to handle all this? Admittedly we can just go back and make 
changes if the result doesn't match our expectations but which was the 
real error in that case? The result or the expectation?

BTW I inferred

<em>hello <strong>dear</em> boy</strong>

which maybe for strict XHTML should be

<em>hello <strong>dear</strong></em><strong> boy</strong>