[aria-testsuite] doctype of files in ARIA testsuite?

In running the W3C validator on the documents in the ARIA testsuite at
https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/pfwg/file/default/ARIA/1.0/tests/test-files I notice
a few hundred files that have an HTML4.01 Transitional doctype and quite a
few documents that don't have a doctype at all.

Unless some tests need to have an HTML4 doctype for some reason as part of
what they're testing -- or need to lack one for some reason -- I propose
changing the doctypes on all those documents to just "<!DOCTYPE html>", so
that all the documents in the testsuite have the same doctype.

I've attached a diff (mercurial changeset) with the change, but it could
also be merged in from a fork of the pfwg I set up at bitbucket:

  https://bitbucket.org/sideshowbarker/pfwg-fork/compare/doctype..default#diff

Since browsers don't do anything with the doctype anyway[1] it seems safe
to change the doctypes to "<!DOCTYPE html>", because changing it won't
affect the actual test results at all.

The only effect of the doctype in this case is on validator behavior, and
for that I'm pretty sure you're way better off with the documents having
the "<!DOCTYPE html>" doctype -- because that'll ensure that if the
documents are validated with the W3C validator, they'll go through the
HTML5 facet, which includes extensive ARIA validation support.

  --Mike

[1] About browser effects, the HTML4.01 Transitional doctype causes
browsers to switch into what the HTML spec calls "limited-quirks mode"
a.k.a. "almost standards mode", though I'd doubt that makes any difference
as far as what the ARIA testsuite is testing.

-- 
Michael[tm] Smith http://people.w3.org/mike

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Received on Saturday, 10 August 2013 15:21:09 UTC