Re: mixed signals on "Writing HTML documents", tutorial, etc.

On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 19:19 +0200, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:14:00 +0200, Philip Taylor (Webmaster)  
> <P.Taylor@Rhul.Ac.Uk> wrote:
> > Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> >
> >> I would actually like to be able to author the same way as I currently
> >> author HTML4 documents.
> >
> > How is one meant to interpret that utterance ?
> 
> I would like constructs supported by HTML4 that are reasonably backwards  
> compatible (supported by browsers) to remain conforming. This includes  
> writing documents like this:
> 
>    <!doctype html>
>    <title>Example document</title>
>    <p>Example paragraph.

When introducing the language to authors, I prefer to stay within
the bounds of XML. I understand from instructors that this goes
over well with students. (I hope some of the instructors on this
list will chime in to give 1st-hand evidence.)

So I'd present that as:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
 <title>Example document</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Example paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>


I'd rather do without the <!DOCTYPE html>, but I suppose staying
out of quirks-mode is worthwhile.

The xmlns declaration is a mouthful, but it makes processing
with XSLT/XPath straightforward.

I prefer to treat missing </p> as a form of error recovery,
just like poorly nested <b> and <i> tags.

I don't know if I feel strongly enough about it to make a detailed
design change proposal. But if anyone is writing new tutorial
material, that's what I suggest.

-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Monday, 18 June 2007 21:04:34 UTC