Re: Proposal for developing HTML 5 materials for Web *authors*

Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Nov 2007, Karl Dubost wrote:
>   
>> The fact for example to say you should write
>> 	<p class="boo">…</p>
>> 	or <p class='boo'>…</p>
>> does not change anything to the parsing algorithm, doesn't change 
>> anything to the implementation of browsers.
>>     
>
> I've been having trouble working out exactly what you were proposing in 
> this thread so far. But it seems that you are actually proposing that we 
> change the spec to disallow unquoted attribute values (and presumably, 
> attribute names without attribute values), and in general disallow 
> anything that is incompatible with the XML syntax.
>   

It wouldn't have be the known as the "XML" syntax. If you wanted a name 
for it. It could simply be called the: U.W.M.S, "Universal Web Markup 
Syntax".

> As in, you presumably want to require that this:
>
>    <input type=checkbox checked>
>
> ...be written as this:
>
>    <input type="checkbox" checked="checked"/>
>
> If so, I have to strongly object on behalf of my employer. We strongly 
> desire to use the minimal syntax that HTML allows, and we don't want to be 
> made non-compliant just because of that. 

> (We are non-compliant enough as it is.)
>   

Yes, and I think that shows that Google doesn't really care about it's 
markup or the size of it's pages. A lot of Googles pages are large and 
bloated. Not lean, light weight or showing any desire to be served fast 
or to save bandwidth.

> While it is absolutely fine to have writing conventions and style guides, 
> they should not change the actual language itself. We have no interest in 
> the XML serialisation, and being forced to be compatible with it is of no 
> use to us. On the other hand, we _do_ want to make our documents as small 
> as possible. HTML's various syntax shortcuts are a big help here. They 
> should continue to be allowed.

I doubt very much that Google has no interest in the XML syntax:

http://www.google.com/xhtml/

I doubt very much that Google being a supporter of new technologies and 
always looking at new ways to do things would rule out the possible use 
of XML based languages in the future. Does Google not imagine that they 
will ever use SVG or MATHML?

The http://www.google.com/ main page is not a very big file. Changing it 
to a more interoperable/universal syntax would not make it that much 
larger and would not be the end of the world. Other Websites do not have 
problems conforming to a stricter standard.

If the short syntax is such a benefit to Google then why don't they use 
it on all there pages? Why don't other high-traffic/high-use sites use 
this syntax. Probably because it's a bad practise and best avoided.


 From the IRC logs: http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20071122#l-165
> [03:10] <Lachy> Hixie, re your post to public-html, does google really 
> care about keeping documents small? I assume they realise that if it 
> was really that really that important, the could save a whole heap 
> just by cleaning up their homepage
hmm...

Microsoft, Yahoo, flickr, Youtube among others stick with the widely 
used "strict" syntax.

It's not actually about forcing Google to use a syntax that they 
*believe* they may never use themselves. It's about Google using a 
syntax that is interoperable with everyone else. And therefore not 
creating more unnecessary interoperability issues.

Sincerely,
Dean Edridge

Received on Thursday, 29 November 2007 05:42:35 UTC