Re: Are new void elements really a good idea?

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> Julian Reschke wrote:
>> So, coming to HTML5, why exactly are we introducing new void elements 
>>  such as <eventsource>, knowing that existing code will need to be 
>> updated to produce them? The same way HTML5 tries to protect existing 
>> Web content, it *should* also try to protect existing code, avoiding 
>> totally needless updates.
> 
> Authoring tools shouldn't be considered to be immutable.  Like web 
> browsers, they too need to be updated to deal with many new features in 
> HTML5.  Even the parsers in web browsers need to be significantly 
> updated for many reasons, including the parsing of new void elements.

There are many more authoring tools than browsers.

Furthermore, we really should consider the cost of breaking things 
compared to the gain. In this case, the cost is substantive, but the 
gains seems to be close to zero.

>> Furthermore, what's the expectation for future iterations of HTML5, or 
>> HTML6? Will there be more void elements, again requiring changes in 
>> existing producers?
> 
> It's entirely possible that new void elements could be introduced.  But 
> instead of trying to restrict the growth of HTML5 based on the designs 
> of old authoring tools, the authoring tools should also be updated to 
> expect new void elements and be able to deal with them better.

How? A concrete proposal please.

>> As far as I can tell, there are at least two ways to avoid the problem:
>>
>> 1) Do not introduce new void elements, and state, once for all, that 
>> no new elements will be added beyond those in HTML4.
>>
>> 2) Keep introducing new void elements, but always allow non-void 
>> notation, such as
>>
>> <eventsource source="foo"></eventsource>
> 
> <eventsource src="foo"/> is allowed.  Isn't that sufficient?

I only tried Saxon, and it creates a start and an end tag. As far as I 
recall, that's the right thing to do when producing HTML rather than 
XML, isn't it?

BR, Julian

Received on Saturday, 30 August 2008 20:21:19 UTC