Re: Silently deprecating XHTML

On Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:52:16 +0100, Frank Ellermann  
<hmdmhdfmhdjmzdtjmzdtzktdkztdjz@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>> Then use XHTML5 with the proper media type.
>
> Not "visible with any browser" => showstopper.

Fair enough.


>> XHTML 1.x as text/html didn't have this feature either.
>
> Of course it has, I use XHTML validators to find bugs,
> not browsers desperately trying to display something.

The work in progress HTML5 validator has a feature that allows you to  
override the MIME type and therefore to validate as XHTML5 as Simon  
pointed out.


>> Netscape 3 is sort of irrelevant at this point.
>
> It could also affect 4.x (for those poor confused
> folks thinking that 4.x was "better" than 3.x ;-), at
> some point in time <br /> and friends were important
> enough to be mentioned in the notorious "appendix C".

That was because HTML 4 was based on SGML where <br /> meant something  
completely different.


> Clearly HTML5 has better things to do than to worry
> about such historical issues, but just allowing <br/>
> "also" in HTML when it never really worked in XHTML 1
> is a rather odd move.  Why can't they simply use <br>
> in HTML 1+, visible with any browser ?

Due to a lot of people advocating usage of <br/> / <br /> in text/html  
content it is more cost-effective to simply allow it -- given that it  
works interoperably in "current" browsers -- than to try to change the  
mindset of all those authors.


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
<http://annevankesteren.nl/>
<http://www.opera.com/>

Received on Monday, 28 January 2008 13:14:14 UTC