Re: Other syntax: part of my review of 8 The HTML syntax

On Aug 14, 2007, at 6:09 AM, Robert Burns wrote:

>
>
> On Aug 14, 2007, at 5:14 AM, Robert Burns wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Summary
>> --------------------------------
>>  • Rework the HTML syntax to be about HTML in the broadest sense  
>> of the term
>>  • Use HTML to refer to the broadest sense of HTML and 'text/html'  
>> to refer to the serialization
>>  • Move the syntax chapter to chapter two (2).
>>  • Specify error-handling for the XML serialization with respect  
>> to misused '&', "<' and unknown character entities
>
> On this last issue, I'm mostly interested in the stray '&' and the  
> unknown character entities (more so than the stray '<'). The  
> indirect effect on well-formedness for '<' is probably much harder  
> to deal with than '&'.  Much more than unknown character entities,  
> the stray '&*' is a well-formedness constraint violation and a non- 
> fatal error[1]. Current browsers apply the draconian error-handling  
> for well-formedness errors to these validity errors.
>


Let me try this again. I meant to say: "Much more than unknown  
character entities, the stray '&*' is  <ins>NOT</ins> a <del>well- 
foredness constraint violation and <ins>IS</ins> a non-fatal error[1]. "

Adding now: current browsers apply the draconian error-handling for  
these non-fatal errors too. By encouraging browsers to be less  
draconian (they have typically claimed they had to be so draconian,  
but they go way beyond the XML recommendation)[2], we will see fewer  
needless fatal-errors on the web. We can also unify the handling of   
particular character entities (those without the terminating semi- 
colon) across the XML and 'text'html' serializations.

Take care,
Rob

[1]: <http://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#dt-chardata>
[2]: See my exposition on XML fatal-error requirements:
<http://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14952> and
<http://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14945>

Received on Tuesday, 14 August 2007 11:25:10 UTC