- From: Lachlan Hunt <lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au>
- Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:03:17 +0100
- Cc: Sam Ruby <rubys@us.ibm.com>, HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
Henri Sivonen wrote: > <!DOCTYPE html SYSTEM "about:sgml-compat"> would seem to fit the > requirements as a legacy generator alternative to <!DOCTYPE html>. Based on some further discussion in IRC, these are the advantages of using the SYSTEM identifier with an about: URI scheme. * Many people are already familiar with the scheme and so it's memorable. More so than, e.g., the tag: or data: URI schemes. * It's shorter than an equivalent http: URI would be * It's non-retrievable and so there's no expectation of a DTD. * Use of an absolute URI rather than a string like "sgml-compat" that is indistinguishable from a relative URI prevents consumers that attempt to retrieve DTDs from getting 404s from many servers. * Typing about:sgml-compat into browsers generally results in an error message or blank page. This helps in pre-empting any bogus rationalisations for why using this one with the URI is better than <!DOCTYPE html> without the URI. * As Philip demonstrated earlier, using a SYSTEM identifer is generally more compatible with legacy producers than a lone PUBLIC identifier. -- Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software http://lachy.id.au/ http://www.opera.com/
Received on Friday, 16 January 2009 15:03:55 UTC