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

On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:34:29 +0200, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:

> On Fri, 17 Jul 2009, Steven Pemberton wrote:
>> On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:32:19 +0200, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
>> > On Thu, 16 Jul 2009, Steven Pemberton wrote:
>> > >
>> > > So I can send XHTML5 as text/html if I want.
>> >
>> > No, you can't. If you send a document as text/html, then _by  
>> definition_
>> > it is an HTML5 document, not an XHTML5 document. There is no other  
>> way to
>> > distinguish them than the MIME type.
>>
>> I very much disagree. It's my document, I get to say what it is.
>
> Well, the author can say it is anything they want, but that doesn't  
> change what it actually is.
>
> 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".

I used to think that too, but then I realised that in the real world it is  
different. Browsers sniff, and media types are hard-wired into software,  
rather than being an extension point. You have to row with the oars you  
have got. As I said, I send documents with media type text/html, not  
because they are necessarily HTML, but because I want them in the browser.

I agree that the document gets *processed* as HTML, but the document  
doesn't magically change type just because it gets sent with a certain  
media type.

>> Thanks to plugins, javascript, and similar techniques, the documents do
>> what I require of them. When I say "text/html" I don't mean "here comes
>> an HTML document", I mean "I want this in the browser".
>
> Sure. But from the HTML5 spec's persective, if you send a document as
> text/html, then by definition in is HTML5, not XML. The two syntaxes are
> not distinguishable (e.g. <br xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"/> is
> valid in text/html HTML5, with the / and the attribute being ignored by
> the processing requirements; even some of the XHTML 1.x DOCTYPEs are  
> valid
> in text/html HTML5), so there really is nothing but the author to claim
> anything different, and the author isn't normative.

I'm not arguing about processing, I'm arguing about the document. And as  
far as I am concerned, when it comes to saying what sort of document it  
is, the author is most certainly normative.

Best wishes,

Steven

Received on Friday, 17 July 2009 12:37:51 UTC