From: Ian Hickson [mailto:ian(_at_)hixie(_dot_)ch]
I think we can agree that the error handling should be, at the option
of the software developer, either to handle the input as defined by the
spec's algorithms, or to abort and not handle the input at all.
Currently, I don't think url.spec.whatwg.org distinguishes between strings that
are
valid URLs and strings that can be interpreted as URLs by applying its
standardised error handling. Consequently, error handling cannot be at the
option of the software developer as you cannot tell which bits are error
handling.
This might be why some are unhappy with url.spec.whatwg.org.
url.spec.whatwg.org does have separate "Writing" and "Parsing" sections.
Perhaps the implicit idea is that any output of the "Writing" section is a
valid URL (that all URL-processing software should handle). The "Parsing"
section accepts more strings than can be created by the "Writing" section. The
difference is the error handling. It's OK for a software developer not to parse
this difference if it makes its parser simpler, safer, or that is the way its
parser works today.
--
James Manger