- From: Matthew Raymond <mattraymond@earthlink.net>
- Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 07:25:15 -0400
- To: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- CC: W3C HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
Maciej Stachowiak wrote: > I agree that Matthew Raymond's objection to this was incorrect - I do > not believe it to be the case that a "switch, by being proprietary, > would be non-conformant" for the document if it were hidden in > comment syntax. My understanding is that XML parsers can ignore comments entirely, so to have an XHTML5 user agent process a comment is counter to XML. It would require a redesign of some existing XML parsers just so they could handle a specific XML-based language. I don't know about Processing Instructions, so you may have me there, although it would have to be clear that this didn't cause a problem with existing toolsets. Another solution is to put the switch in a <meta> element. However, all opt-into-standards-mode switches have the fundamental problem that they increase bandwidth, thus handicapping standards-compliant content in situations where bandwidth is limited. > But your rejoinder was also incorrect. > > Using such a switch to turn implementation conformance on or off > would render the implementation nonconformant. I do not see how we > could allow that without watering the spec down to meaninglessness, > especially if nonconformance occurs in the *absence* of the switch. Ah, but you fail to follow his logic. If the spec says that, by default, you can be non-conforming unless you opt into conformance, you are in fact conforming! Thus we eliminate non-conformance by redefining what conformance is.
Received on Friday, 20 April 2007 11:22:58 UTC