On May 1, 2007, at 8:13 AM, Gareth Hay wrote: > > On 1 May 2007, at 15:42, Laurens Holst wrote: > >> What’s different from your ideas is that the difference lies not >> in forcing people into a new model if they want to use HTML5 >> features, but still produce HTML content. This is e.g. very >> relevant for existing systems (that is, all systems that are >> existing now), where people want to add functionality without >> being forced into producing 100% well-formed XML content. > > I think this is the crux of the discussion. > We both think the end point will be the same, but we arrive there > by two opposing methods. > > In my reckoning, people will always choose the easiest path. If > they write tag soup now, they will do so for HTML5 should it render > and 'get the job done'. > By forcing some kind of checking we are educating these users that > they are doing it wrong, if they want to use new html5 features > they *need* to learn about it. Otherwise they carry on writing > html4 tag soup. If writing nonconforming content is easier, then why is writing conforming content? Can we articulate the advantages in a way that will be convincing to content authors? If not, then what is the point? This is a serious question. Your messages all seem to assume that "valid" content is an end in itself, but surely, specific markup techniques are the means to achieving some practical goals. Personally I think writing conforming content does achieve practical goals, and we can continue to make those clear to authors and provide them with easy access to conformance checking. Regards, Maciej
Received on Tuesday, 1 May 2007 19:22:12 UTC