- From: Jon Barnett <jonbarnett@gmail.com>
- Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 08:43:34 -0600
- To: Sam Ruby <rubys@us.ibm.com>
- Cc: Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz>, HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <bde87dd20901160643k536b51bfv8a9da6c559a10224@mail.gmail.com>
On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 6:14 AM, Sam Ruby <rubys@us.ibm.com> wrote: > Going forward, I would appreciate it if everybody with an opinion on the > subject would weigh in on which of the following options they could live > with: > > 1) Single DOCTYPE, with a null quoted string > > 2) DOCTYPE with an optional null quoted string > > 3) Two DOCTYPES: one "preferred" with no quoted string, and one > "pejorative" with the value "legacy-compat". > > 4) Two DOCTYPES: one with no quoted string, and one with a value of > "XSLT-compat" that should not be used unless the document is generated from > XSLT. > My concern with 3 and 4 is that any string mentioned in this thread, such as "legacy-compat", pejorative or not will cause confusion with novice authors. Authors will see the "legacy-compat" DOCTYPE and assume that DOCTYPE does something different from <!DOCYTPE html>. Since author's always want to maintain compatibility with legacy browsers, a novice author will prefer the "legacy-compat" version. Even the string "XSLT-compat" gives the impression that the DOCTYPE does something in the UA. I would prefer <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC ""> just because it doesn't contain any misleading words like "legacy", "strict", or "transitional", but I understand the point that it will still get mistyped. (In fact, if my XSLT serializer can generate that, I'm tempted to start using it today if it triggers standards mode, satisfying it's whole purpose.) -- Jon Barnett
Received on Friday, 16 January 2009 14:44:09 UTC