Re: [doctype] useless/not required or useful/required

On 6/14/07, Karl Dubost <karl@w3.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Editors,
>
>     [[[
>     8.1.1. The DOCTYPE
>     A DOCTYPE is a mostly useless, but required, header.
>     ]]]
>     -- HTML 5
>     http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/spec/Overview.html#the-doctype
>     Fri, 15 Jun 2007 01:20:32 GMT
>
> please change the sentence to:
>
>  A DOCTYPE is a required header.

I agree.

Besides, the note below that sentence already stresses that the
doctype's #1 purpose is to trigger standards mode. (The only other
purpose might be the detection of an HTML5-specific document.)

Although not much different and not a big deal, I like one of the
following wordings of that note better:

"The DOCTYPE is required for legacy reasons. When omitted, browsers
tend to use a different rendering mode that is incompatible with this
specification. Including the DOCTYPE in a document ensures that the
browser makes a best-effort attempt at rendering the document
according to this specification."

or just:

"When the DOCTYPE is omitted, browsers tend to use a different
rendering mode that is incompatible with this specification. Including
the DOCTYPE in a document ensures that the browser makes a best-effort
attempt at rendering the document according to this specification."

Currently, the note is a little general about "specifications".  It
*might* be benificial to use the note to stress even more that *this*
specification requires a doctype if you want things to render
correclty.  Or, even saying explicitly that it's not an HTML5 document
without the HTML5 doctype might help.

-- 
Michael

Received on Friday, 15 June 2007 06:57:21 UTC