Re: Versioning and html[5]

Chris Wilson schrieb:
>> - support <!DOCTYPE html> as always-the-latest-version,
> 
> Not once it's widely used, as we will break back-compat.

You should be able to make two release cycles before this spec is done 
(I don't even mean a recommendation) _and_ widely used. So this is 
directly glued to the next point. If you manage to fix /most/ DOM and 
CSS quirks not for standards/quirks mode but for <!DOCTYPE html> within 
two release, which one should expect given Microsoft's resources and 
your proclaimed commitment to adopt standards, you will be able to 
escape the doom loop of backwards compatibility.

>> - release new versions of IE often and advance aggressively (get
>>   somewhere near standards compliance, and people won't expect IE to be
>>   and remain the buggy browser),
> 
> Yes.

>> - and if needed, make new frozen-standard-support modes opt-in, and use
>>   conditional comments for that (which would make you independent from
>>   this very HTML WG and allow you to add new, advanced modes later on
>>   without having to wait for another HTML spec).
> 
> That only allows authors to fix up their pages relatively easily once they see they're broken.  We release a new browser, and web developers and users still say "it's broken".

I think ordinary authors and your business partners would adopt it 
gladly and spread the word. But it's up to you to get the ball rolling.

Also, I don't really see the alternative. As said, you can't wait for 
HTML6 to make another leap to standards compliance, because nobody knows 
how long that will take.

--Dao

Received on Friday, 13 April 2007 08:31:50 UTC