AW: Charset "iso-10646-1"

Hello,

> Looking closer to home, XHTML 1.0 only mentioned the issue in Appendix C:
>
> # C.1 Processing Instructions
> #
> # Be aware that processing instructions are rendered on some user agents.
> # However, also note that when the XML declaration is not included in a
> # document, the document can only use the default character encodings
> # UTF-8 or UTF-16.
>
> XHTML 1.1 doesn't mention it, and neither does XHTML M12N or XHTML Basic.

My two cents about that:
First cent: XHTML 1.0 Appendix C.1 confuses all XML/HTML beginners because
the XML declaration is mentioned in that paragraph about processing
instructions as if it were a processing instruction, but the XML declaration
is not a processing instruction, it is explicitely excluded from processing
instructions by the XML specification (first and second edition).

Second cent: The fact that XHTML 1.1, XHTML Basic 1.0 and XHTML
Modularization Recommendations do not mention the encoding problem of course
doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. I really believe it should be mentioned
more indepth in the W3C recommendations about HTML. The XML people are aware
of that problem, but the HTML users aren't.
Usually I use ASCII characters (true ASCII, means 7 Bit, 0-127) only because
then it is legal to omit the XML declaration because ASCII is
forwards-compatible to UTF-8 encoding of the Unicode charset. Every
ASCII-document automatically is an UTF-8 document. Yes, I do use characters
beyond 127, I even use characters beyond 255, but I use Entities for
including them in my documents. Perhaps this behaviour should be recommended
by the W3C since it avoids many problems and maintains compatibility between
XHTML and old browsers.

Just my two cents...

Greetings

Christian

Received on Friday, 31 August 2001 17:43:38 UTC