Re: Bug 7034

On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:17:25 +0100, Leif Halvard Silli  
<xn--mlform-iua@målform.no> wrote:
> Anne van Kesteren, Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:18:43 +0100:
>> I don't think it is acceptable really to use xmlns as mode switch.
>
> Authoring switch rather than mode switch.

It's a validator mode switch alright.


>> I don't see what the problem is with keeping the syntax about as loose
>> as all versions of HTML have been so far
>
> According to MAMA: [1]
>
> ]]
> "Transitional" Doctype flavors dominated over their "strict" and
> "frameset" variants by more than 10 to 1.
> [[
>
> But HTML5 currently forbids many elements [2] and even more attributes
> [3] that "transitional" allows. E.g. <center> is number 25 on the
> element popularity rank, according to [2].

I don't see what this has to do with syntax.

Also, do we really still need to have arguments over why transitional  
doctypes are bad (they trigger an inferior rendering mode for one) and why  
presentational markup is to be avoided?


>> and making the requirements
>> on which elements and attributes you can use slightly stricter as
>> seems to have been the overall trend as well. Which as far as I can
>> tell is appreciated by authors.
>
> So may be xmlns would be pop? After all, the tightening of the syntax,
> to exclude presentational elements, has happened in - and are connected
> with - the xmlns based specs, to a large degree. I remember reading
> something to the same extent in your blog, hundreds of years ago. ;-)
> As you correctly said then, XHTML1.0 is not more semantic than HTML4.0,
> but the perception still is that XHTML syntax is more "semantic".

Keeping people delusional does not seem like a good strategy.


>> I can definitely see the point that in certain environments (e.g.
>> when you work with a large team) you want stricter requirements on
>> syntax as well and it would certainly make sense to me if the
>> validator had some options for that, but having it triggered by
>> markup will just lead to confusion.
>
> At the very least, I doubt that it will _just_ lead to confusion:
>
> James Graham, Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:22:16 +0100 (CET):
>> The choice of xmlns in particular seems bad as it conflates issues of
>> XML-ness and conformance.
>
> That xmlns is permitted inside the <html> start tag *without* there
> being any requirement for XML-ness, will at least create _some_
> confusion.

Yeah, polyglot documents are highly confusing.


> And a document without xmlns could be conforming as well - to some
> other set of requirements. So I do not see that it conflates
> conformance and xml-ness.
>
> [1] http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/mama-key-findings/#structsize
> [2] http://devfiles.myopera.com/articles/532/elemlist-url.htm
> [3] http://devfiles.myopera.com/articles/532/attrlist-url.htm


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
http://annevankesteren.nl/

Received on Wednesday, 24 March 2010 10:30:31 UTC