RE: New editor's draft of the HTML/XML TF Report

Norm et al.

“Do you think there's any possibility of achieving consensus for a model that says HTML5 and XHTML5 are that radically different in design and philosophy?”

I do think that it is possible to achieve a consensus for a model. This actually occurred with XHTML, which essentially has two levels: Strict and Transitional. Presently, there are some programmers who abhor strong typing and others, like myself, who cling to it like a child adheres to a security blanket. One size will not fit all. It is reasonable to employ software safety constraints that are appropriate for the subject matter. Ctrl Alt Del is probably sufficient for a home PC and is absolutely wrong for a rapidly moving vehicle. There is a world of difference between a simple game and software for surgical robotics or a pacemaker. In terms of the present problem, there would be three levels: HTML5, XHTML5 and XHTML5 Strict. HTML5 remains untouched. XHTML5 is the equivalent of the old XHTML Transitional, where the code has to be well formed with minimal type checking, which is perhaps equivalent to XML5.  XHTML5 strict requires XML validation; however, since it should be based on XSD1.1, it would permit islands of foreign code.

Bob Leif

-----Original Message-----
From: public-html-xml-request@w3.org [mailto:public-html-xml-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Norman Walsh
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 7:08 AM
To: public-html-xml@w3.org
Subject: Re: New editor's draft of the HTML/XML TF Report

 

"Robert Leif" < <mailto:rleif@rleif.com> rleif@rleif.com> writes:

> "Where HTML goes to great lengths to defined how an agent must recover 

> from markup errors, XML is unforgiving in the face of markup errors".

 

That language has been softened per Anne's suggestion.

 

> It does not appear that XSD1.1 has a data-type containing the string 

> “exception”. I believe that we should suggest to the group that is 

> developing XSD1.1 that they create one and define it in such a way 

> that it is compatible with HTML5 (See below). In the case of HTML5 and 

> the XML vocabulary that is based upon XSD1.1, the goal should be 

> harmonization.

 

Validation is way too late in the process. The problem XML faces is at parse time.

 

> “However, as all of the use cases appear to have plausible solutions 

> today, solutions that do not appear amenable to significant 

> improvement, it appears that there is little that can be done beyond 

> documenting these circumstances.”

> 

> The first part of the sentence, “However, as all of the use cases 

> appear to have plausible solutions today” implies that all of the 

> problems have been solved. It is followed by a phrase that there are

> still: “solutions that do not appear amenable to significant 

> improvement”.

> 

> Does the all need to be changed to some or what? Do you mean: However, 

> these solutions do not appear amenable to significant improvement. It 

> appears that there is little that can be done beyond documenting these 

> circumstances.

 

I meant that we articulated solutions for the use cases and within the constraints outlined, it doesn't look like we could do a lot better.

 

> “we use the term “DOM” (Document Object Model) throughout as a general 

> term for any of these possible representations.” Abbreviations should 

> be spelled out.

 

Ok.

 

> “Resolution HTML5 doesn't have an extensibility story that admits the 

> possibility of content in arbitrary namespaces.”

> 

> This is correct and is also the heart of the problem. A reasonable 

> solution is to leave HTML5 alone; and instead, to define XHTML5 to be 

> extensible. HTML5 then would be left to do general purpose including 

> entertainment web pages and XHTML5 would be reserved for interfacing 

> with XML and high integrity applications. Since the browser is a 

> program, it is not written in either HTML or XML. However, its 

> capabilities should be able to be met by the programming language used 

> for its implementation. Obviously, every effort should be made to 

> maximize the harmonization of HTML5 and XHTML5 and much of the code 

> employed to parse and render the two languages can be common.

 

Do you think there's any possibility of achieving consensus for a model that says HTML5 and XHTML5 are that radically different in design and philosophy?

 

                                        Be seeing you,

                                          norm

 

--

Norman Walsh

Lead Engineer

MarkLogic Corporation

Phone: +1 413 624 6676

 <http://www.marklogic.com> www.marklogic.com