RE: MathML-in-HTML5

That fact that adding XML islands to tag soup doesn't turn it into steak
shouldn't surprise anyone. But I don't think it is fair to dismiss the
value of adding MathML to HTML on that basis. I think Microsoft provided
a very simple mechanism that allows XML islands inside tag soup but
without making it more soupy, to stretch the metaphor a bit.

I'm not sure what you mean by "lack of success of IE's extension
mechanism". If you mean that Mozilla didn't adopt it, then you are
right. Given that the world's web content is largely tag soup, at no
fault of Microsoft that I know of, they added XML islands to it in a
straightforward way that could have been adopted by all other browsers.
I never heard anyone say that Mozilla didn't adopt it because it was
implemented badly. They just put all their eggs in the XHTML basket
hoping it would drive content producers to use XHTML. If anything shows
lack of success, it is XHTML. 

Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dev-tech-mathml-bounces@lists.mozilla.org 
> [mailto:dev-tech-mathml-bounces@lists.mozilla.org] On Behalf 
> Of Ian Hickson
> Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 4:20 PM
> To: David Carlisle
> Cc: www-math@w3.org; dev-tech-mathml@lists.mozilla.org
> Subject: Re: MathML-in-HTML5
> 
> On Tue, 3 Oct 2006, David Carlisle wrote:
> > >
> > > What are the rules for handling non-well-formed content?
> >
> > not sure what the "rules" are (as in whether they are published 
> > anywhere), perhaps someone from DS (or Microsoft for that 
> matter) could 
> > give more information, but empirically what I think happens 
> is that if 
> > you register the namespce on m: with a component then any top level 
> > element (<m:math>..</m:math> in our case) gets handed over to the 
> > component, well formed or not, and then it's up to the 
> component what it 
> > does with it.  Mathplayer for example usually tries to make 
> something 
> > out of incorrect (including non well formed)  content, but always 
> > renders it in a red error box.
> 
> So basically, it's the same as tag soup. I don't really see 
> an advantage 
> to going down that route (with its complexities like 
> namespace prefixes, 
> etc) -- if anything, the lack of success of IE's extension mechanism 
> should be taken as a sign that this is not the path to 
> follow. (Compare 
> this to, e.g., <marquee>, which was so widely used that other 
> browsers 
> were forced to support it.)
> 
> -- 
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                
> )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   
> _\  ;`._ ,.
> Things that are impossible just take longer.   
> `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
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Received on Tuesday, 3 October 2006 23:48:34 UTC