Re: what is dt?

Shelley Powers writes:

> Smylers wrote:
> 
> > Shelley Powers writes:
> >   
> > > I am less concerned about issues related to browser companies
> > > having to change their code, than I am introducing levels of new
> > > confusion with HTML5. This specification should have, as its
> > > primary audience, the larger of the groups who are directly
> > > impacted by its contents, which would be the web
> > > developers/designers.
> >
> > The problems with redefining existing behaviour aren't that browser
> > developers would need to make changes; they are problems for
> > authors.  There are two sorts of limitations:
> >
> > * Not breaking existing pages:
> 
> If the person set the doctype to HTML5, would they be as equally
> offended by the breakage?

Hi Shelley.  Probably not, but HTML5 doesn't restrict new elements to
pages with the new doctype introduced in HTML5 -- if an author users
<video> or <details> or whatever in a page it's clear what she intends,
and it wouldn't help authors for browsers to decline to provide that
element just because it has a different doctype.

Indeed many authors of (pieces of) HTML aren't even in control of the
doctypes on their pages -- perhaps because a content management system
sets it for them, or perhaps because they want to offer a snippet of
HTML of a video (or widget or whatever) which other users can copy and
paste into their own pages.

So unfortunately new features still need to work with existing doctypes.
Which means they can't require treating existing pages differently.

> > Everybody would prefer a well-named element which can be used now.
> > Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be possible, so we either have to
> > put up with a badly named element or wait a long time to be able to
> > use [a good one].
> 
> Why is this not possible?

Because the good names have already been taken and currently have
undesirable behaviour in browsers.

Smylers

Received on Sunday, 20 September 2009 12:43:37 UTC