Re: Support for XHTML5

> On 3 Dec 2015, at 21:20, Robin Berjon <robin@berjon.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Sebastian,
> 
> thanks for taking the time to follow up from our Twitter discussion here.
> 
> On 03/12/2015 13:00 , Sebastian Heath wrote:
>> I of course welcome the development of a W3C standard for Scholarly
>> HTML. For existing publications such as ISAW Papers support for the
>> XHTML concrete syntax[3] of the abstract HTML language is important.
> 
> I hate to be pedantic, but then this is standards so we kind of have to.
> The word "support" is too vague, certainly without reference to a
> conformance class. Here are several meanings it could have:
> 
>  A) Processors must accept XHTML documents.
>  B) Documents must use the XHTML syntax.
>  C) SH must be compatible with the ecosystem of tools that consume
> XHTML today.
> 
> If the idea is (A), then that's by and large a given. Over HTTP use the
> right media type and you'll be fine; in other contexts make sure your
> XHTML is Appendix-C compliant

Forgive me my ignorance. What do you mean by 'Appendix-C compliant'? There is no appendix in the HTML5 spec…

Ivan


> (which is probably a good idea to start
> with) and you'll be good too, even with processors that expect HTML.
> 
> If the idea is (B), then I would have to disagree. XHTML is a legacy
> format, I can't think of an area still maintained that relies on it but
> isn't actively moving away. People can certainly use it as a transition
> technology, but locking a new format into it would be a strange move.
> 
> And if the idea is (C), then it probably depends on the ecosystem but in
> general there is no reason why you can't just put an HTML parser in
> front of an XML pipeline.
> 
>> For me the need for XHTML is practical. I'm looking for a robust,
>> widely recognized standard that can serve the end-to-end goals of
>> scholarly publication that include straightforward creation, open source
>> tools for our editorial work-flow, accessible publication in the
>> immediate and medium term, and long-term archival storage and the
>> expectation of readability far into the future.
> 
> Very much agreed; and those are all reasons why HTML is a practical
> choice :)
> 
>> As in, I use a lot of XSLT and I want rigorous validation;  I look to
>> align with epub[4] and other efforts; etc.
> 
> The tendency in EPUB is more away from XHTML than towards it. Were we to
> use XHTML for EPUB 3 alignment then we should also use epub:type instead
> of role, and I think that would be problematic (and also against the
> notion of long-term archival).
> 
> XSLT and validation are DOM-level operations (or Infoset, or XDM), they
> don't apply to syntax. Are you doing anything specific with the syntax
> that prevents you from just fronting your XSLT/validation pipeline with
> an HTML parser?
> 
> --
> • Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon
> • http://science.ai/ — intelligent science publishing
> •
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C
Digital Publishing Lead
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
mobile: +31-641044153
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704