Re: The term "HTML documents"

On Sun, 17 Jun 2007, Mike Brown wrote:
> 
> In section 1.4 (Terminology), this is troublesome: "The term HTML 
> documents is sometimes used in contrast with XML documents to mean 
> specifically documents that were parsed using an HTML parser (as opposed 
> to using an XML parser or created purely through the DOM)."
> 
> I don't like the idea of a term as important and ubiquitous as "HTML 
> documents" having a variable meaning in a specification, especially one 
> that's about that very topic. I suggest nailing down more precise 
> terminology so there is no ambiguity and no need to warn the reader.

I don't really know what other term to use. Suggestions are welcome, 
though be aware that this would be quite a difficult change to make so 
unless the suggestions are really much better than what we have now, I'd 
rather not make the change.


> Also, perhaps I'm not clear on just how drastic the changes in HTML 5 
> are (I'm only commenting on random things that caught my eye, at the 
> moment), but it seems counter to my previous experience to imply that an 
> HTML document cannot be created "purely through the DOM".

If you call implementation.createDocument() you get back an XML document, 
not an HTML document.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Friday, 9 May 2008 05:58:18 UTC