Re: Maturity of XML

Julian Reschke wrote:
> Jirka Kosek wrote:
>> in the section 1.4.1 (http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#html-vs) there is:
>>
>> "Generally speaking, authors are discouraged from trying to use XML on
>> the Web, because XML has much stricter syntax rules than the "HTML5"
>> variant described above, and is relatively newer and therefore less 
>> mature."
> 
> Out of context, this sounds really bad...

As I understand it, one of the reasons for that statement is that XML's 
draconian error handling is not very user friendly, and that if a simple 
well-formedness error slipped through the cracks, then it would result 
in an error that most users would not understand.  However, I somewhat 
agree that the spec should avoid taking sides in the HTML vs. XHTML debate.

Maybe it would be wise to rephrase it as a caution to authors that 
choose to use XHTML on the web.  Maybe something like this:

   Due to the strict syntax rules and error handling requirements of XML,
   authors choosing to use XHTML should use caution in doing so to ensure
   that well-formedness constraints are not violated to the detriment of
   end users.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

Received on Thursday, 2 August 2007 16:08:02 UTC