Re: 3.6. The root element

On Jul 31, 2007, at 11:22 PM, Jason White wrote:

>
> On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 10:31:18PM -0500, Robert Burns wrote:
>>
>> Based on this thread, I offer the following text to substitute for  
>> the
>> current subsection.
>
>
> I haven't been following all of the discussion, but this proposal  
> seems
> reasonable, with one caveat:
>> Simply for convenience — to make
>> migration to and from XHTML mildly easier — authors may include a  
>> default
>> namespace declaration even within the text/html serialization. For  
>> example:
>
> The current draft is more precise than this. It states that an  
> xmlns attribute
> may be present if and only if it has a specified value. I think  
> this more
> exact statement needs to be retained.

I agree the current draft is more precise. I question whether that  
precision is at all necessary. If UAs are required to ignore any  
attribute with the name "xmlns" or starting with "xmnls:" then the  
value of the attribute is irrelevant. If authors understand that any  
attribute included in a text/html serialized document will be ignored  
then it doesn't matter what the value is. Basically it shouldn't  
matter what the value is. Is there some reason you think the value of  
the attribute is important or were you simply trying to capture the  
same thrust of the current draft?

>
> Also, here, and elsewhere in the proposal, requirements are stated  
> in terms of
> what authors may or may not do, whereas the specification should  
> instead say
> what is (and isn't) a conforming HTML document, as the current  
> draft does.
> Although this is an editorial comment, it is important to  
> distinguish between
> "author requirements" and document conformance requirements, noting  
> that the
> spec prescribes the latter rather than the former. (What authors  
> are required
> to do is to create syntactically and semantically correct  
> documents, as is
> clarified in the conformance section. Format converters and wysiwyg  
> editors
> are given greater scope for error on the semantic side.)

I don't have a strong feeling on the editorial issue. I like stating  
it as a an author requirement to put it in an active voice which can  
often lead to clearer prose. However the draft should be consistent.

Take care,
Rob

Received on Wednesday, 1 August 2007 05:55:09 UTC