Re: review of "The root element" subsection

Robert Burns wrote:
> 
> Charset attribute
> 
> Suggest adding charset attribute to root element rather than adding a
> charset name to the <meta> element. This will be easier for authors to
> use. It will also be easier for UAs to pre-parse. (Rob Burns)

The rationale for the <meta charset=""> attribute combination is that
UAs already implement it, because people tend to leave things unquoted,
like:

<META HTTP-EQUIV=Content-Type CONTENT=text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1>

Thus, adding an element to the root element would add yet another place
UAs have to check for charset data.

Andrew Sidwell