Re: SGML SHORTTAGS Feature usage in HTML 4.x Recommendation.

Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@gmx.net> wrote:

>* Terje Bless wrote:
>
>>May I suggest you issue an erratum for the HTML 4.01 Recommendation
>>noting that the included SGML Declaration is for compatibility concerns
>>with common SGML systems (that no longer exist today) and that the more
>>precise SGML Declaration would contain a FEATURES section such as:
>
>Justification? Errata is for errors, SHORTTAG the way it is declared is
>not an error, it's been the same in HTML 3.2, HTML 4.0, the later
>released HTML 4.0 and finally HTML 4.01.

This is exactly the justification for it. This has been inherited from
earlier Recommendations even after the facility became available to
individually disable these undesireable SGML features. HTML 4.01 /should/
have clarified what was the intent by including an updated FEATURES section
in the SGML Declaration as it was produced after WebSGML and SGML systems
had by then implemented them.

See also my response to Karl-Ove Hufthammer on this subject. The HTML 4.01
Recommendation appears very clear in it's intent on this issue. The SGML
Declaration does not reflect the prohibitions described in the prose.


>The W3C MarkUp Validator may warn authors using such features if you
>like it to, without any change to the specification.

As was made abundantly clear on this very issue, the second we attempt to
apply checks that exceede what we have mandate for from a Recommendation
the complaints will come rolling in. Without mandate -- from an errata to
the HTML Recommendation, a new version of HTML4, or at least a Note from
the HTML WG to support it -- the W3C MarkUp Validator _cannot_ apply these
checks in any way that is actually useful. The net result is that authors
keep running into these issues and wondering why the Validator does not
catch such "obvious" errors.



-- 
Everytime I write a rhyme these people thinks its a crime
I tell `em what's on my mind. I guess I'm a CRIMINAL!
I don't gotta say a word I just flip `em the bird and keep goin,
I don't take shit from no one. I'm a CRIMINAL!

Received on Tuesday, 12 November 2002 10:01:27 UTC