HTML Link Types [Was: Linking RDF]

Aaron Swartz wrote:
> 
> (moving to www-archive)
> 
> Murray Altheim <altheim@eng.sun.com> wrote:
> 
> > The contents of the 'rel' attribute is declared as %LinkTypes;, a
> > space-separated list of XML Names; a URI won't do here.
> 
> I found it interesting that this definition was not in HTML4. Why did it
> change in XHTML 1.1? Could you put it back? ;-)

The use of CDATA for %LinkTypes; was only an oversight, in that had the
original designer thought to use NMTOKENS, this would have been more
appropriate in the DTD. The design in the HTML 4 specification of link 
types is a list of tokens, not a list of URIs, so XHTML is merely a 
correction in this sense. You can find in the HTML 4 specification that
the intention is explicitly tokens:

  http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-links

And can *I* fix it? Heh. I alone can do little. XHTML is merely (as much
as is possible) a transformation of HTML into XML. We tried very hard (or
at least I did) to not reinvent HTML in the process. If markup abuse has
been happening (ie., people not using HTML according to the specification),
this is certainly nothing new. HTML is a bit of an Eve in this respect (no
relation to Eve Maler intended).

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim                            <mailto:altheim&#x40;eng.sun.com>
XML Technology Center
Sun Microsystems, Inc., MS MPK17-102, 1601 Willow Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025

      In the evening
      The rice leaves in the garden
      Rustle in the autumn wind
      That blows through my reed hut.  -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu

Received on Thursday, 26 April 2001 05:12:36 UTC