Re: Do we need the restrictions on the <base> element?

On Tue, 29 May 2007 13:55:01 +0200, Henrik Dvergsdal  
<henrik.dvergsdal@hibo.no> wrote:
> Why can't you calculate the baseURI dynamically as you parse the  
> document tree? I mean, you always encounter the start tag of parent  
> elements before their children, so this should be possible with a simple  
> stack of baseURI values.

This would violate the specification.


> Anyway, isn't the cost of this kind of simple text parsing hardly  
> noticeable compared to operations like image resizing etc.?

It is mostly about refetching all resources (and doing layout again) for  
all those affected as I understand it. (This is probably hardly ever the  
intention.)


> Do you know other places where problems like these are discussed/ 
> described? It would be interesting to learn more about the actual  
> processing challenges of browsers, search engines etc. I guess this is  
> relevant for other parts of the spec as well.

The best way to learn about issues such as these is getting involved in  
some browser project or try implementing bits of the specification  
yourself.


Anyway, I personally don't think there's enough justification to add yet  
another global attribute which doesn't really solve much real life use  
cases and increases the learning and implementation cost of HTML. It might  
look "neater" I suppose, but that's no real justification.


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
<http://annevankesteren.nl/>
<http://www.opera.com/>

Received on Tuesday, 29 May 2007 13:36:39 UTC