Re: HTML comments in <title> elements - valid or not?

On Tue, 9 Nov 1999, Dan Connolly wrote:

> Arjun Ray wrote:
> > 
> > On Mon, 8 Nov 1999, Dan Connolly wrote:
> > > Arjun Ray wrote:
> > 
> > Yes, and the content model of TITLE is (#PCDATA).
> 
> I'm not sure what your point is. 

That the friendly prose doesn't match (#PCDATA).

> If you're assuming that all documents that validate per the DTD
> conform to the spec, that's just not the case. The DTD doesn't express
> all the constraints.

That's the deeper point: the DTD doesn't do much, if anything at all.
It's one huge red herring. 

> > The issue is "a context in which text is parsed and markup is recognized".
> > The operative concept here is *recognition* of markup.  Simply because
> > something looks like markup doesn't make it so.
> 
> No, but matching the relevant productions in the SGML grammar does.

Yes, subject to the provisions of Clause 9.6 "Delimiter Recognition".
Something that looks like markup is indeed markup only if the recognition
mode is appropriate (and, in some cases, a contextual constraint is also
satisfied.)  Here, I'm not sure what your point is!:)

> [...] But there's so much in the SGML spec that seems like it
> was designed to be tested in court rather than by software... sigh...

I agree.  ISO 8879 was always a poor fit.  That's why I've argued to drop
the normative reference.  It enables nothing and it illuminates nothing.
It's there only to trip the unwary. 

> But, as evidenced by deployment of the <SCRIPT>...</SCRIPT> syntax,
> implementors weren't really scared of specially hacked parsing
> modes after all :-{

I wouldn't put it quite that way.  Implementors had given themselves carte
blanche to invent their own ad hoc parsing modes.  Using SGML, of all
things, to pick up the dirty laundry afterwards was an exercise in
futility, IMHO.

But this is an old argument.

   <URL:http://www.nyct.net/~aray/htmlwg/stds.html>
   <URL:http://www.nyct.net/~aray/htmlwg/rcs.html> 

> > The Changelog goes back to only v.1.7.2.1, dated 1994/04/01.
> 
> Look again; that's a branch. Brances are listed after the earliest
> versions.
> It goes back to
> 
> revision 1.2
> date: 1992/12/03 02:04:29

You're right.  Sorry about that.

> > | * Revamped HTML, HEAD, elements in light of feature test entities
> 
> There's a lot of detail hidden behind that changelog entry.

No doubt!:)

> > But 1994/04/01 is too early for the html-wg anyway.  The welcoming letter
> > (from Stu Weibel) is dated 1994/07/29:
> 
> Good point... maybe it was in www-html or www-talk...

The archives at lists.w3.org are missing www-talk for '93 and '94: the
"old" directory is unusable because the TOC is a whopping 13+Megs.

> surf surf... here's a little gem that I seem to have taken only half to
> heart:
> 
> 	"My new motto is: just describe it; don't prescribe it."
> 	-- yours truely, Fri, 04 Dec 92 13:11:32 CST 
> 	http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-talk/1992NovDec/0155.html

That indeed is the crux.  The W3C needs a Tag Soup spec.


Arjun

Received on Wednesday, 10 November 1999 00:01:17 UTC