Re: xmlns in HTML5 (was: Telecon Agenda- Thursday 1500 UTC)

On 17 Jul 2009, at 12:34, Ian Hickson wrote:

> It is literally not possible to send XHTML5 as text/html, because  
> as soon
> as you label it as text/html, you are stating "it is HTML".


As soon as Steven labels it as text/html, he is stating that it is  
HTML. But that doesn't mean that it is HTML.

If I state that I'm President Elect of the Galactic Federation, that  
doesn't make it true. (I'm only the Acting President.)

It's certainly fine for browsers to process Steven's document using  
their normal rules for processing HTML, because that is what he has  
claimed that it is - it's not their fault if he's lied. Hopefully he  
has anticipated that they will do that, and checked that the  
document's rendering and functionality will not be hindered by this.

Using a Content-Type header to determine what is HTML and what is  
XHTML for processing purposes is fragile -- not all situations where  
a processor will be dealing with (X)HTML necessarily involve HTTP --  
but ultimately a good pragmatic decision. However, the determination  
of how something will be processed by user-agents does not  
necessarily effect its intrinsic nature.

My website is XHTML, but it will be served as text/html if your  
browser seems to prefer it that way.

-- 
Toby A Inkster
<mailto:mail@tobyinkster.co.uk>
<http://tobyinkster.co.uk>

Received on Friday, 17 July 2009 11:48:14 UTC