Re: History Re: [webcomponents] Template element parser changes => Proposal for adding DocumentFragment.innerHTML

On Fri, 11 May 2012 19:57:37 +0200, Rafael Weinstein <rafaelw@google.com>  
wrote:

> It was wrong for me to editorialize about SVG and MathML -- and
> "punish" was very poor word choice. I apologize to anyone who was
> insulted. It certainly wasn't my intent.
>
> I should have just said that I'm frustrated with the world we've
> arrived in WRT HTML vs XML and left it at that.

Fair enough...

cheers

> On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 3:07 AM, Charles McCathieNevile
> <chaals@opera.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 11 May 2012 10:55:27 +0200, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 7:45 PM, Rafael Weinstein <rafaelw@google.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'm very much of a like mike with Henri here, in that I'm frustrated
>>>> with the situation we're currently in WRT SVG & MathML & parsing
>>>> foreign content in HTML, etc... In particular, I'm tempted to feel
>>>> like SVG and MathML made this bed for themselves and they should now
>>>> have to sleep in it.
>>>
>>>
>>> I think that characterization is unfair to MathML.  The math working
>>> group tried hard to avoid local name collisions with HTML.  They
>>> didn't want to play namespace games.  As I understand it, they were
>>> forced into a different namespace by W3C strategy tax arising from the
>>> "NAMESPACE ALL THE THINGS!" attitude.
>>
>>
>> Actually, I think even that is an unfair characterisation. At the time  
>> both
>> these technologies were developed (mid-late 90s) everyone assumed that  
>> XML
>> was the path of the future for everything, and that de-crentralised
>> extensibility was a critical requirement for a powerful web platform.
>>
>> Given that scenario, it is unclear whether there is a better approach.  
>> The
>> current HTML approach of "if it is important it will get into the  
>> mainline
>> spec" effectively breaks the key extensibility assumption. Leading
>> implementors like Adobe, SodiPodi and Inkscape all introduced namespaced
>> content all over the SVG map - in many cases doing things that active  
>> SVG WG
>> members thought were excessive. Likewise Microsoft Office (at the time
>> probably as widespread as "web browsers" in general) introduced  
>> namespaced
>> content all over HTML (IE didn't support XHTML).
>>
>> Seven years later, both of those assumptions came under attack from the
>> nascent WHAT-WG approach to updating HTML - but unlike the case for  
>> HTML,
>> where the market leader had clearly resisted implementing XHTML, SVG in
>> particular was backed by a number of XML-happy engines. It was several  
>> more
>> years before SVG and MathML were incorporated into HTML in a way that
>> clearly made sense.
>>
>> Punishing people, or even ridiculing them, for using XML in the late  
>> 90s,
>> seems counter-productive at best. Outside HTML even Microsoft - who  
>> were one
>> of the big creative forces behind XML - were pushing it everywhere, it  
>> was
>> considered de riguer for making the mobile web a possibility outside  
>> Opera
>> (which supported it anyway, but didn't require it), and it had, and  
>> still
>> has, huge deployment. It just failed on the "web browser" platform, for
>> reasons that are far easier to see in hindsight than they were at the  
>> time.
>>
>> cheers
>>
>> Chaals
>>
>> --
>> Charles 'chaals' McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
>>    je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg kan noen norsk
>> http://my.opera.com/chaals       Try Opera: http://www.opera.com


-- 
Charles 'chaals' McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
     je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg kan noen norsk
http://my.opera.com/chaals       Try Opera: http://www.opera.com

Received on Friday, 11 May 2012 18:22:37 UTC