Re: supporting both formats html5 & xhtml5 re: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#xhtml5

On 12/19/07, Dean Edridge <dean@55.co.nz> wrote:
>
> regarding: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#xhtml5
>
> > For compatibility with existing content and prior specifications, this
> > specification describes two authoring formats: one based on XML
> > (referred to as XHTML5), and one using a custom format
> > <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#parsing> inspired by SGML (referred
> > to as HTML5). Implementations may support only one of these two
> > formats, although supporting both is encouraged.
>
> I don't think that support for XHTML5 should be optional. Specifying
> that user-agents may support only one format, but supporting both is
> "encouraged" is insufficient and will only lead to a lack of support for
> XHTML5 like we had with XHTML1.
>
> Can this please be changed to:
> [[
>     .....Implementations MUST support these two formats.
> ]]

Well that's one side of the issue... what are the others? What are the
cases where supporting both serializations is an undue burden? Take
off the desktop browser implementor hat and try on the other HTML 5
parser hats: mobile device, consumer electronics, embedded desktop
widget engine and so on.

The pros & cons of this (and any future) proposed change are needed
for the issue tracking volunteers, editors, chairs, and the whole
working group to make rational choices.

Shawn

Received on Wednesday, 19 December 2007 13:15:11 UTC