Re: review of "The root element" subsection

Robert Burns wrote:

> On Jul 10, 2007, at 7:21 AM, Simon Pieters wrote: I tried a slight
> variation on your test:
> 
> <!doctype html> <html charset=utf-8 > <head> <meta charset=iso-8859-1
> > </head> <body> <p>There should be a white smiley face below if your
> browser supports @charset in the root html element: <p>☺ </body> 
> </html>
> 
> When saved as utf-8 with no BOM, Safari displays it as UTF-8. My
> default for Safari is Latin1.

Using this new testcase[1] I was unable to reproduce your result in
Firefox 3 or Opera 9.2 (and, per discussion on IRC it could not be
reproduced on IE7 or Safari 3/Win).

> but that would just mean we already have one forward-looking HTML5
> friendly UA.

Aside from the specifics of this case, I take issue with the use of 
"forward looking" to mean "happens to have the behavior I am advocating" :)

>> Even if it didn't complicate implementation, it still isn't
>> compatible with current UAs, which is the main drawback.
> 
> I'm here because I'm mostly interested in the forward looking portion
> of HTML5. If others are not so interested in that, then I understand.
>  However, there are portions of this draft that also are not
> "compatible with current UAs". So pointing out that drawback is
> simply pointing out the obvious.

If there are features that can sanely be handled in a way compatible
with legacy UAs but are presently specced in an incompatible way I
suggest you bring them up on the mailing list and on the wiki. Features
like <canvas> have no substitute in existing UAs so can at best provide
fallback content to those UAs (except where scripting can be used to
'backport' the feature).

> It still follows the criteria of other portions of the draft in that
> it does not break things.

However it introduces two equivalent ways of doing the same thing, with 
only a minor benefit to the new approach. Dan has already pointed out 
that this is contrary to several design principles.

[1] http://simon.html5.org/test/html/parsing/encoding/002.htm

-- 
"Mixed up signals
Bullet train
People snuffed out in the brutal rain"
--Conner Oberst

Received on Tuesday, 10 July 2007 23:27:41 UTC