Re: XHTML Syntax Served as text/html (Was: Decentralized poetry markup (language))

Smylers, Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:04:09 +0000:
> Leif Halvard Silli writes:
>> Smylers, Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:14:59 +0000:
>>> Leif Halvard Silli writes:
>>>> Tab Atkins Jr., Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:36:42 -0600:
>>>>> On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Leif Halvard Silli:

>> If we are permitted to serve XHTML as text/HTML, then it makes sense
>> be able to validate such documents as well.
> 
> Sure.  But we aren't, in general, permitted to serve such documents.
> 
> Or at least such documents will be interpreted by user-agents as
> text/html.  So it only makes sense to check them against the rules for
> valid text/html.

If it only were so well. If SGML-inspired HTML could be extended the 
same way XML-rooted HTML can, then it would be so well.

>>> When content is being served in a way which will cause all
>>> conforming user-agents to treat it as one thing, how is it useful to
>>> check its validation as something else?
>> 
>> Quite. Because, as you know, XHTML and HTML are quite close to each
>> others.
> 
> Close, but not identical.  And where there are differences, serving as
> text/html will cause the document to be interpreted using the HTML
> rules.

Of course it is interpreted as text/HTML.

>  That it happens to conform to a different (though similar)
> language in which a portion has a valid meaning doesn't affect that: it
> still either conforms to HTML or it doesn't.

XHTML is included under the umbrella "HTML": "HTML is the family name 
for the group of languages that form the lingua franca of the World 
Wide Web." http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Activity
 
>>> Regardless, a change in W3C Validator behaviour cannot affect what
>>> is permitted in HTML5.
>> 
>> My point was merely that if HTML5 refuses to become more relaxed about
>> extensions,
> 
> HTML5 is very relaxed about extensions: if a community agrees that a
> particular extension is relevant to them, then it's permitted.  (Though
> admittedly that's more a description of how things are the real world
> than any policy by HTML5; it couldn't really be otherwise.)
> 
> So if a knitting community come up with a mark-up language for embedding
> knitting patterns in webpages, and that community have HTML user-agents
> which interpret that language (maybe through a browser plug-in), then
> it's valid for other members of that community to serve pages which
> makes use of it.

The evangelist.

I can only repeat what I said. What I hear from (I don't bother to 
mention names) is not relaxed, it is frantic. And frankly, a validator 
that refuses to validate XHTML served as text/HTML is a little bit 
frantic as well. Although, by all means: I do see that it has a 
(theoretical) point. (A more fruitful approach would be to validate 
such documents as the polyglot document they are clearly intended to 
be.)
 
>> then there exist another, parallel technology - namely XHTML served as
>> text/HTML.
> 
> But there isn't.

I forgot what Sam uses to say - something about nuances of angle wings.

>  In doing so you are explicitly instructing user-agents
> that the content is HTML and should be interpreted as such.  What they
> do with your content is defined by HTML (and any extensions they choose
> to recognize).

Of course. XHTML documents served as text/HTML will be parsed as 
text/HTML.
 
> If you choose an extension which your user-agent isn't aware of, but the
> extension may safely be ignored, then the page will still be interpreted
> correctly.  And it will be valid HTML5+your extension.  That's probably
> all that matters.

I don't know where you take your anticipation from.

> Of course it won't be valid HTML5.  But that isn't particularly relevant
> to what you're serving.  If it happens to be valid XHTML5 (or Befunge,
> or whatever), it _still_ won't be HTML5.

One of our groups goals is to not pursue theoretical purity etc.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Wednesday, 20 January 2010 19:25:20 UTC