Re: Deciding in public (Was: SVGWG SVG-in-HTML proposal)

Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
> ...
>> Actually, yes. It would allow the W3C to now standardize <canvas> 
>> without having to deal with that legacy.
> 
> Why can't "namespacing" of new elements be moved out of the actual tag 
> itself and into the HEAD element instead? For example let's say that 
> <greatelement></greatelement> could be enabled via
> <meta name=element content="org.whatwg.greatelement" > or through 
> "(something better than) @profile". Even the Internet Explorer "HTML 5 
> shiv" [1] comes to mind as a rough example of how it could work (but I 
> don't say that JavaScript should need to be involved!)

That could work, but I'm not sure it would be any better.

One problem is that you move away the declaration from the instance, 
it's more easily broken by copy&paste.

> A system were one had to write <vendor:tag namespace:vendor-URL> would 
> perhaps lead to lack of peer review, because other vendors would be 
> reluctant towards implementing support for tags which included other 
> vendor's name or namespace directly in the tag. Wheras having an 
> acceptable extension mechanism could increase peer review, as would 
> define method for trying out things.

The namespace name doesn't need to include the vendor's name. There are 
many ways to mint URIs that do not rely on DNS, or which use a neutral 
party (such as purl.org), if that's what you're concerned with.

> ...
> Btw, in CSS, there is a "blessed" mechanism for adding new, 
> experimental/vendor spesific "things". According to CSS 2.1, both Opera, 
> Microsoft, Mozilla and non-browser vendors have used this mechanism. The 
> most well known mechanism is to begin the feature with a '-' plus a 
> vendor spesific tag. For example display:-moz-inline-block is known to 
> many.
> 
> Mozilla has extended this even to CSS selectors. Thus :-moz-any-link{} 
> is a selector that only Mozilla browsers accepts. (Using that method is 
> the only way to serve CSS rule to mozilla browsers only.)
> 
> When it it is necessary, and works in CSS, then it should also work in 
> HTML.
> ...

As Ian said, it doesn't work for element names because there can only be 
one :-)

BR, Julian

Received on Monday, 4 August 2008 06:53:07 UTC