If I could walk that WAI I wouldn't need the guidelines

[j4]

Since the Understanding document ['Understanding WCAG 2.0'] is more than double the size of what it purports to explain, this itself may indicate a problem with WCAG 2.

Is it just me, or is an exposition of something often longer than what it's explaining? Particularly (one might even argue necessarily) when you're translating from technical specifications into more generally-accessible language, i.e. from high to low information density?

Comments

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

But as Janet says it depends whether I'll actually genuinely learn anything useful from working it out for myself. Some questions I will, others I won't. I've done enough working things out for myself in the past that usually I won't learn anything.

To be honest, a lot of questions I ask are because code isn't very well written or user interfaces are stupid and I think if people write bad code or user interfaces and want other people to use what they've done, they should expect to answer questions about how they work :-)

There's somehow a semi-pervasive culture among programmers that you have to work out everything yourself - it's almost about proving that you're clever enough to be able to do so. I really hate that culture - it's so competitive rather than cooperative. It's like people who assume you are stupid because you don't know certain things. I suppose I get this a bit having gone into programming from a maths background. There are weird gaps in what I know about, but it's not because I'm incapable of understanding what's in those gaps.