Re: Version information

L. David Baron schreef:
>> In hundreds/thousands of years how will they know which version of  
>> HTML they need to implement to view today's content?
>>
>> This is definitely a benefit of version information within the  
>> markup. In the future when someone comes across a document with HTML  
>> they know exactly which specification they need to implement.
>>     
>
> You're confusing theoretical ability with practical ability.
>
> Sure, somebody could go out and implement every single past version
> based on specifications.  (Although, in reality, those
> specifications won't be sufficient if the meaning of the versions is
> defined by what Internet Explorer implements rather than by the
> actual specification.)
>
> But that's orders of magnitude more work than implementing a single
> specification, and therefore much less likely to be done.
>
> That it's theoretically possible is not worth much if it's too much
> work for anyone to do in practice.

In the future I bet they have software which will automatically scan and 
implement any specification ;).

That said, as long as ‘don’t break the web’ remains a fundamental 
principle of HTML5, I don’t see a direct need for versioning. If any 
future version of HTML decides to ditch that principle, versioning can 
be re-introduced. Worst case, any implementation can create a custom 
attribute on the root element to indicate which ‘rendering-mode’ has to 
be used. This is more likely to be effective than a 
specification-version, as the problems that supposedly need different 
rendering modes are related to the releases of the software and not the 
specification.


~Grauw

-- 
Ushiko-san! Kimi wa doushite, Ushiko-san nan da!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laurens Holst, student, university of Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Website: www.grauw.nl. Backbase employee; www.backbase.com.