Re: Is "breaking the Web" with HTML 5 a non issue?

2008/9/22 Justin James <j_james@mindspring.com>
>
> So let's either ditch DOCTYPE, or have it mean something. But to continue
> on
> with it being merely a "talisman" is not a good plan.
>

Hear, hear. In principle, I agree wholeheartedly with Justin and Philip's
suggestions (and was on the verge of making the same suggestion as Philip
before he pipped me to the post).

However, what, in practice, would be the ramifications? Andrew has made the
point that browser vendors may not play ball. If they don't, then how I feel
about the issue matters little (until I'm proficient at writing browsers ;-)
). But suppose for a moment that the browser vendors did play ball. What
other problems might be caused by having the DOCTYPE do as it gives every
impression of being supposed to do (i.e. specify the type of the document)?

Alternatively, if DOCTYPE was dropped altogether, what problems would that
cause for HTML5 or for backwards compatibility?

Sam