Re: Inconsistency in HTML 4.01 regarding NBSP

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Jukka K. Korpela <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> wrote:
> There's a lot of chaotic activity under the name "HTML 5".

HTML5 is the name of a W3C Working Draft, same as any other (like most
of CSS3, for instance).  It's proceeding along the normal standards
track in the W3C and should be at Last Call within a year, with any
luck.  There's nothing "chaotic" here, although certain aspects of the
standard are unpopular in some quarters.

> Or maybe it isn't, partly because HTML 5 does not exist even as a draft
> _specification_, it's just "working draft".

I'm not sure what you mean.  HTML5 is a bona fide W3C specification,
which is currently in Working Draft stage.  All of it is ready for
implementation attempts by this point, and many parts are ready for
use by authors (because many parts have been interoperably
implemented, in some cases long before HTML5 existed).

> It seems to discuss whitespace
> handling under "Common parser idioms", making things rather loose.

It defines certain terms there, which are used in the rest of the
specification.  How whitespace is actually handled in any given
situation is defined throughout the specification as applicable.
Sometimes it's collapsed, sometimes ignored, sometimes treated as
significant, and sometimes this depends on whether it's ASCII
whitespace or Unicode whitespace.

Do you know of any particular behavior (whitespace-related or
otherwise) that you think is poorly defined by the specification?  If
not, what do you mean to say is "rather loose"?

Received on Friday, 15 January 2010 19:27:39 UTC