Re: Revamp HTML5 doctype sniffing?

On Fri, 27 Mar 2009, Daniel Schattenkirchner wrote:
>
> When comparing the doctype sniffing of HTML 5 and Internet Explorer 
> versions 6 to 8, you notice that HTML 5 sniffs for more doctypes than IE 
> does. That is, many doctypes that trigger Quirks Mode per HTML 5 trigger 
> Full or Almost Standards Mode in Internet Explorer.
> 
> I think it would be a good decision to make HTML 5 fit IE and not IE fit 
> HTML 5.

The current list was derived with great care from the lists implemented by 
all major browsers, whoses lists where themselves derived over time with 
great care to handle legacy content. There are DOCTYPEs that trigger 
quirks mode in some browsers but not IE because IE's "standards" mode has 
historically been more equivalent to other browsers' "quirks" modes, and 
so some sites have ended up depending on this configuration. There are 
cases of the opposite also, where sites sniff for older versions of IE and 
give it different markup than is received by newer browsers.

In conclusion, I do not believe changing the sniffing algorithm at this 
point would be wise.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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