Re: "HTML document" in "HTML: the markup language"

Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi>, 2008-11-16 11:06 +0200:

>  Under "2. HTML syntax", the term "HTML documents" is taken to mean both 
>  text/html and application/xhtml+xml data streams.

I've completely removed the term "HTML document" from the draft
and replaced all instances of it with simply "document". I think
for the purposes of this draft at least, there's no ambiguity
about what kind of "document" it means: A document that is an
instance of the HTML language.

In places where it's necessary to make a distinction, the text now
refers to "documents in the HTML syntax" and "documents in the XML
syntax", with all instances of those phrases being hyperlinks to
the following definitions:

  http://www.w3.org/html/wg/markup-spec/#syntax-document-html
  http://www.w3.org/html/wg/markup-spec/#syntax-document-xml

>  The link to the definition is broken.

I couldn't figure out which particular link you mean. Can you tell
me which specific one?

>  "Under 2.2. HTML documents", it says that an HTML document must 
>  consist of, among other things, "A DOCTYPE", which isn't true for 
>  application/xhtml+xml data streams.

That I've addressed by having a separate explicit definition for
what a conformant document in the XML syntax is.

>  Immediately before this section, it says 
>  "For the most part, the remaining subsections in this section provide 
>  details specific to the HTML syntax."

I've removed that statement and will try to figure out some better
way of making it clear which parts of the syntax section apply to
the HTML syntax only.

>  I think various deliverables of this WG should be consistent in what an 
>  "HTML document" is.
>   1) Does it cover both HTML and XML serializations / DOM modes?
>   2) Does it cover a) byte streams, b) Unicode character streams, c) tree 
>  implementing certain DOM interfaces in certain modes and/or d) non-DOM 
>  in-memory data structures?

It seems like one way to address it is to avoid using "HTML
document" and just use "document". I'm not sure that's do-able for
other deliverables, but for the markup draft, to me at least it
looks like any problems around ambiguity and consistent use of the
term "HTML documents" can be avoided by using "documents" or
"conformant documents" (documents that conform to the criteria in
the spec).

  --Mike

-- 
Michael(tm) Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike/

Received on Monday, 17 November 2008 10:04:32 UTC