RE: XHTML Invalidity / WML2 / New XHTML 1.1 Attribute

Dear All,
I'm glad that people are discussing the idea of the
comment attribute. Bertilo has the idea - it is
potentially very useful.
In reply to DJW, I believe that the comment attribute
would lead to a more structured document, for some of
the reasons listed in the original discussion.
Comments of the <!-- --> variety are already legal,
but they simply float around unattached. This is fine
if they are comments which have noting to do with the
content (i.e. to borrow DJW's word "unstructured"),
but if they relate to the elements themselves,
wouldn't be a better idea (and more structured) to
include them as an attribute?
Actually, this brings me to another point; if XHTML is
an XML language, surely this brings back the legality
of having a comment spread over many lines-
<!-- text
 more text
 more text -->
If so, doesn't that cause nightmares for the
compatability teams? (Because first it was leagal,
then illegal, and now legal again!)
Also, if so, how can anyone say that a comment
attribute will be any more unstructured than the usual
comment (which admittedly, DJW didn't say, but may
have implied)?
DJW:
> I haven't had time to look at RDF 
> yet, so I'm not sure if this
> would tread on RDF's toes.  

SBP:
Well, I don't believe it does. (I must admit, I
haven't looked fully yet either). However, what we are
talking about here is an attribute to be 'hard wired'
into XHTML. Structural, as it were, rather than as
meta data just passes along with it (if you follow).

In reply to the "processing" idea, this was one of my
original thoughts behind the attribute. However, as I
write all HTML in Notepad, I don't think it will make
much of a difference to me! Of course, it would be
useful if you had a very large site (for example, a
100MB ASP site), and you wanted to extract all of the
comments. You could write an ASP code for that task.
The comment attribute certainly has its uses! I'd like
to see it in the XHTML spec, because otherwise we'll
have to go about making our own DTD for it...(note
some mild humour is implied, but I would do it if I
had a site much bigger than
http://www.waptechinfo.com/).
I might write a longer essay on this attribute, if it
is needed, as possibly issue it as an RFC on IETF.
However, I'm sure this must have caught the attention
of a few more W3C staff.
Surely this attribute would be worth the effort,
especially if it could be included through a simple
change in the correattrs(?)
My greatest thanks go out to everyone contributing to
this discussion. (Especially Bertilo Wennergren for
his support, and DJW, who is always happy to
help/comment on the www-html list.)
Kindest Regards,
Sean B. Palmer
WAP Tech Info - http://www.waptechinfo.com/

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com/

Received on Friday, 11 August 2000 10:43:22 UTC