Re: HTML5: clean and non-clean

Henri Sivonen wrote:
> 
> In reference to:
> http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2008/09/23-minutes
> 
> The minuted discussion mentions "clean" and "not-clean" several times 
> and separating them.
> 
> What kind the of separation was meant in the discussion?
> 
> HTML5 already says what is conforming (i.e. "clean"?). In some cases in 
> the minutes, it *seems* that the discussion was about splitting the 
> processing model instead of splitting out document conformance 
> definition. If this was indeed what was discussed, what kind of 
> implementor would benefit from reading only the "clean" part of the 
> processing model?

Probably none.

However there are far more authors/content producers than implementors, 
and those would benefit a lot.

As Noah pointed out:

"... having a clean spec is good for content creators"

and

"Actually, where I'm scribed as saying "separate permissive behavior 
from clean behavior" isn't quite the nuance I had in mind. I think a 
language specification indicates which documents are legal, and what 
they mean. That's one spec. I think HTML 5 as drafted also includes a 
specification for pieces of code we might call browsers, which by the 
way attempt to provide useful output for content that would not be 
"legal" in the language spec, e.g. improperly nested elements. I think 
having both specifications is very important, but I would prefer that 
the browser specification, including fixup of bad content, was separate 
from the specification of the clean language and its correct 
interpretation. The former spec. would be for authors and for those who 
might in future be able to deploy less permissive UAs; the latter would 
be to achieve interoperability among browsers as we know them."

(with which I wholeheartedly agree)

BR, Julian