Re: Possible Compromise solution for namespaces in HTML5

On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Leif Halvard Silli
<xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:11:38 -0600, Shelley Powers wrote:
>> On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 10:19 PM, Tab Atkins Jr.wrote:
>>> On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Ennals, Robert wrote:
>>>> Are you referring to the problem where random company X creates an
>>>> extension which has a big flaw, that extension gets widely adopted,
>>>> and then we are forced to accept a broken feature into the standard
>>>> since we can't change it without breaking stuff?
>>>
>>> Nope, I'm referring to the problem where Company X creates a
>>> namespaced extension, <foo:element>, and this then works its way up to
>>> becoming a standard <element>.
>   [...]
>>> This is the reasoning behind Maciej's suggestion for doing
>>> element-level extensibility in attributes instead.  Instead of
>>> <foo:element>, you'd do <div -foo-element> or similar.  Then when the
>>> second browser puts out their experimental implementation, you can
>>> just change it to <div -foo-element -bar-element>.  When it gets
>>> standardized, switch it to <element -foo-element -bar-element>.  This
>>> gives you support for both legacy experimental implementation and
>>> current standardized implementations.  As an added bonus, it requires
>>> no changes to the current parsing rules, as unknown attributes are
>>> already dealt with in an appropriate way.  It just prevents you from
>>> validating, same as using vendor-specific additions in CSS.
>>
>> First, Maciej's suggestion is not compatible with the use of
>> namespaces in the XHTML version of HTML5. Second, the two, elements
>> and attributes, are not interchangeable. [...]
>
> Maciej's proposal is effectively a new method for declaring default
> namespaces. For those who have read the parallel thread about Googles
> jotspot namespace on the <body> element:
>
> <body -jotspot-body>

I think I missed this one. But there's been so many threads related to
extensibility and namespaces lately, I'm not sure where I've read what
anymore.

Thanks, I'll go back to that thread, and look at Maciej's proposal more closely.

> --
> leif halvard silli

Shelley

Received on Saturday, 21 November 2009 16:15:23 UTC