[whatwg] Using the HTML5 DOCTYPE as a new quirksmode switch

> Asbj?rn Ulsberg wrote:
> >  Improving on the legacy, proprietary DOM just isn't feasible, imo.

On 14/03/07, Martin Atkins <mart at degeneration.co.uk> wrote:
> Are there particular parts that overlap between IE's DOM and the
> standard DOM where IE's implementation is non-compliant?

Several, yeah. Most important is the events model.

> If not, why can't IE simply support both sets of methods at the same
> time? (In other words, add the standard DOM classes, methods and events
> while leaving in all of the proprietary stuff that people depend on.)

Oh, without overlap everything would be fine and dandy. However,
consider how many scripts would break with just the simple change of
including all newline/whitespace text nodes in the DOM... Sure, any
sensibly coded script won't break because of this sense because it's
already coded so that a single piece of code handles both cases. But
everything that does a browser check and forks will suddenly fail. And
I think we all know that the vast majority of scripts out there aren't
sensibly coded.
-- 
David "liorean" Andersson

Received on Wednesday, 14 March 2007 08:25:08 UTC