Doctype detection

Ian Hickson wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Matthew Brealey wrote:
> >
> > 2. Nowhere in the spec does it say: 'if you don't include a DOCTYPE, the
> > browser can screw things up': IT SHOULDN'T MATTER.
> 
> Just for the record, you are wrong.
> 
> Section B.1 of HTML 4.01 states:
> 
> # This specification does not define how conforming user agents handle
> # general error conditions [...]
> 
> Since error handling is undefined, screwing things up is a perfectly
> valid response. As is cooking some toast, dialling the FBI or starting
> up the screensaver.

(Obviously this doesn't apply to transitional dtd, for which the
doctype-detecters will trigger bug mode).

Is this really a valid response? Is it:
(a) legitimate for browsers to employ doctype-detection in order to
trigger more (CSS) bugs?
(b) really an error response to HTML to break CSS?

-----------------------------------
Please visit http://RichInStyle.com. Featuring:
MySite: customizable styles.         AlwaysWork style 
Browser bug table covering all CSS2 with links to descriptions.
Lists of > 1000 browser bugs         Websafe Colorizer 
CSS2, CSS1 and HTML4 tutorials.      CSS masterclass 
CSS2 test suite: 5000++ tests and 300+ test pages.

Received on Wednesday, 26 July 2000 05:19:43 UTC