Re: Support Existing Content

Also sprach T.V Raman:

 >  > CSS was designed with error recovery built into the syntax. If
 >  > an
 > 
 > Not to the same extent that is being demanded of HTML.
 > Error recovery at the level of "unknown CSS property" should
 > translate to "unknown attribute" or "unknown element" in HTML. It
 > should not translate to the kind of tag soup we're talking of
 > fixing up and blessing as  the new-fangled HTML for the Web.

I agree there's a different level of resolution being demanded at this
point. This is due to the huge installed base, namely the web. In CSS
we had the privilege of starting from scratch (at least for the syntax).

 >  > HTML specification didn't have this in the past. (XHTML tried
 >  > to
 > 
 > Again, this is a second pig that is getting papered over:-)
 > 
 > It has been stated many times here that HTML was under-specified.
 > 
 > I believe that:
 > 
 > A)  HTML (for presentational purposes) was *never* specified,
 >     since the hope was that presentation would be left to user
 >     agents. But Web sites went ahead and used it as a
 >     presentational language anyway, and tagsoup browsers of the
 >     90's gave authors little help with respect to doing
 >     otherwise, the rest is history.

Correct.

 > B)  CSS provided a glimmer of hope with respect to separation of
 >     presentation from content,  but the underlying tagsoup mess
 >     that it had to style, combined with lack of interoperable
 >     implementations has meant that that dream has never been
 >     fully (or even partially) realized.

These days, I see a lot of sites using CSS right. Still, we will
always be stuck with tag soup. At some point it turns into historical
landmarks worth preserving.

 > C) Finally, (and for the record I asserted this at the time in
 >     2000) the transition to XHTML was botched by trying to
 >     compartmentalize XHTML into a completely separate mime-type
 >     -- again this is now history and water under the bridge.

Yes.

 > I believe the draconian rule from XML that you state  would have
 >     not caused a problem if the transition from HTML to XHTML had
 >     followed the roadmap that was proposed by many of us in
 >     1998-99 -- namely,

I disagree with you here. I think draconian is user-unfriendly by
design, at least in text-based languages (as opposed to binary).

 > > From this perspective, HTML isn't 
 > > special: it, too, needs graceful error handing. Even if the markup 
 > > doesn't deserve it :-)
 > 
 > Again, graceful error handling is one thing; 
 > but let's make sure  that the thing doesn't turn into a complete
 > disgrace;-)

:-)

-h&kon
              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome

Received on Tuesday, 1 May 2007 19:02:15 UTC