Re: Comments on "The byte-order mark (BOM) in HTML"

Norbert Lindenberg, Wed, 5 Dec 2012 08:10:47 -0800:

> - "works in XML and HTML": As stated further down, the new rules 
> requiring to use the BOM first apply only to HTML5 served as HTML. 
> For HTML5 served as XML the XML rules still apply, meaning that an 
> HTTP charset attribute overrides the BOM.

The full text is "works in XML and HTML, and works whether your page is 
read over the network or not (unlike HTTP declarations)". This seems to 
be pretty accurate. Nothing is said here about whether HTTP or BOM wins 
- it is only said that BOM is inside the document and therefore works 
regardless how it is served or consumed.

> - Does anybody still care about Internet Explorer 5.5?

I is a non sequitur, for which I take the blame: You see, first the 
text said "Internet Explorer 6". Which was wrong. So I went out to 
check how things worked in IE5.5 - simply as part of my argument that 
there were no problems in IE6. And, sure enough, IE5 displayed quirks 
mode when the BOM was used … But of course: IE5.5 is *always* in quirks 
mode. The quirks mode of IE10 is even called "Internet Explorer 5 
quirks": 
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/12/14/interoperable-html5-quirks-mode-in-ie10.aspx 

So it is not only irrelevant, but also untrue that the BOM affects 
quirks mode in IE5.5.

I think the paragraph in question should be replaced by a paragraph 
that explains that there are no known browsers in use today that go 
into quirks mode due to the BOM. Telling readers that "there is no 
problem" would be helpful.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Wednesday, 5 December 2012 18:41:07 UTC