RE: XHTML and MIME

Hi, David-

L. David Baron wrote:
| 
| I mean it was a mistake that the WG said no to content sniffing.  (I
| would have preferred to do it based on the presence of the XML
| declaration, "<?xml ... ?>".)
| 
| In particular, content sniffing would have allowed migration to XHTML
| without waiting for the vast majority of browsers to support it.
| 
| I'm also unhappy about the other steps that the HTML working group has
| taken to reduce ease of migration to XHTML:  for example, by insisting
| that other specifications that have special rules for HTML (such as
| CSS's rules for handling backgrounds on the body element) 
| make them not apply to XHTML.

I personally advocate easing the transition, as well (though I'm not sure it
should be done on the PI).  These are not intrinsic technical problems, of
course, they are merely problems of specification.  The W3C made these
rules, and the W3C can change them, if there is sufficient cause and will to
do so.  

What would have to be done to clear up this false dichotomy, and who would
have to do it?  Something silly like this should not be allowed to cause
such needless debate.

The 2 sticking points seem to be certain decisions made by the HTML WG, and
a certain contentious point about whether a UA can be allowed to fail
gracefully (perhaps using non-XML facilities) when encountering
well-formedness or validity errors.  Perhaps we should ask the relevant
bodies to clarify and/or errata these points? 

Regards-
Doug

Received on Friday, 1 September 2006 16:08:30 UTC