Re: The argument for |bugmode| (was Re: If we have versioning, it should be in an attribute, not the doctype)

Top-posting for brevity's sake: +1

--Dylan Smith


on 4/18/07 8:14 PM, Lachlan Hunt at lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au wrote:

> 
> On 19/04/2007, at 7:15 AM, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>> On Apr 18, 2007, at 19:33, Chris Wilson wrote:
>> 
>>> I want to explicitly state - I neither asked for nor want the HTML
>>> WG to specify a "bugmode" attribute in HTML.
>> 
>> Would you like a conformance checker to mark whatever IE-version
>> switch you are going to use as non-conforming? (You have very
>> clearly stated the intention to have an opt-in switch in future IE
>> versions.)
>> 
>> If you would like the switch to be marked non-conforming, do you
>> expect Web designers to accept it?
> 
> Many have already said they won't accept a version switch at all, or
> at least not one that they would be forced to use.  I think a
> conformance checker complaining about a non-standard attribute
> designed for explicitly indicating reliance on non-standard behaviour
> would be the least of such authors problems.  It might even be
> counter productive to not raise an error for such an attribute, since
> it would imply that UA-specific-authoring is somehow endorsed.
> 
> So, accepting the fact that we have no choice in a bug mode opt-in in
> IE, I am in favour of a non-standard bugmode attribute (or whatever
> it's called) on the condition that it is explicitly treated as an opt-
> in for older, buggy behaviour, rather than an opt-in for the latest
> standards mode.  The default must be always-standards mode.
> 
> I would also recommend that such an attribute use a simple value that
> indicates the browser version number, like conditional comments.
> 
> e.g. <html bugmode="IE7">
> 
> Although I think this is implied, opt-ins for future versions of IE
> should still trigger the latest mode available in older versions of
> IE.  This would be needed for forwards compatibility.
> 
> e.g. <html bugmode="IE9"> would opt-in to the latest standards mode
> available in of IE8 and IE9, and then keep using IE9 mode for IE10+.

Received on Thursday, 19 April 2007 03:43:01 UTC