[Bug 12072] Comments before <!DOCTYPE html> should be forbidden

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=12072

Daniel.S <crazy-daniel@gmx.de> changed:

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--- Comment #8 from Daniel.S <crazy-daniel@gmx.de> 2011-02-16 17:23:38 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #1)
> An advantage which a forbidding of comments before the DOCTYPE provides, is
> that it would largely kill off X-UA-COMPATIBLE meta elements from  having any
> effect in legal HTML5 syntax.

I think you've got a misconception. The meta switch in IE does not need any
Conditional Comments. I haven't actually seen this constellation of code
before.
So it could still influence most valid HTML documents.
The X-UA-Compatible header is also used to activate the Chrome Frame, I don't
know how that works if the switch was inside CCs.

(In reply to comment #3)
> That it triggers quirks mode in IE is a bug in IE per HTML and I have not seen
> them raise an issue about this yet.

Well, before HTML5 there was no definition, how can you blame Microsoft?

Anyway, many people reported this before. I personally reported it relatively
early in the IE9 development cycle, see (if you got an Connect account):
https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/details/560821/
It's marked Won't Fix for IE9.

(In reply to comment #6)
> I could live with comments before doctype being a conformance error. (I'd be
> scared about actually changing mode selection though. I'd prefer IE getting
> fixed eventually.)

The market share of IE is no longer 90%, so it should be considered that there
is no such issue in Firefox, Opera or Safari/Chrome when a desicion is made.

When the chips are down, simply include it in Acid 4. That helped with other
issues before (text/plain).

(In reply to comment #7)
> The only news in IE9beta is quirksmode in 'application/xhtml+xml'!

FYI, the Release Candidate of Internet Explorer 9 has been released.

In IE9 RC, neither meta element nor HTTP headers can switch X(HT)ML documents
into quirks mode.

Only HTML documents created through XSLT are rendered in quirks mode if they do
not contain a doctype (like in WebKit). In Firefox and Opera even those
documents are rendered in no-quirks mode.

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Received on Wednesday, 16 February 2011 17:23:40 UTC