Re: What's the problem? "Reuse of 1998 XHTML namespace is potentially misleading/wrong"

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 2:08 PM, Robert J Burns <rob@robburns.com> wrote:
>> One thing that I would like to understand though is why the XHTML2
>> working group is trying to reuse the same vocabulary as
>> XHTML1.1/XHTML5 while at the same time developing a language that is
>> significantly different? I.e. what is the technical downside of using
>> a separate vocabulary as I think the earlier drafts of XHTML2 did?
>
> As I said in my earlier message, the XHTML2 WG is being much more careful
> about name collisions than this WG. I think the solution there is for both
> WG's to be careful about name collisions, to avoid introducing identical
> names for new vocabulary and to coordinate the assignment of new names
> between the WGs.
>
> One reason the XHTML namespace is important to both WGs is that it serves as
> the identifying mechanism used by UAs for the vocabulary (along with mime
> type and doctype declarations). In a compound document environment (and this
> could potentially apply to any DocType and any mime type including
> text/html), the namespace URI is the chief way to identify the vocabulary.
> Likewise for namespace DOM operations. If either XHTML introduces a new
> namespaceURI then there will be some lag (how much we do not know) before
> UAs recognize the new URI as largely a synonym for the old URI (or a synonym
> to start with and expected differentiation in the future). Neither HTML5 nor
> XHTML2 wants nor should need to deal with that lag.

If this is a goal then this does mean though that they have to be
compatible not just with the XHTML1.1 defined semantics of each
element, but also with the rendering and DOM API as implemented by
todays browsers.

If that is something they are ok with then I understand the desire to
reuse the XHTML1.1 namespace.

/ Jonas

Received on Wednesday, 11 February 2009 22:27:49 UTC