RE: MathML-in-HTML5

Ian,

I sense some sort of conflicting themes here or perhaps I'm just
confused. Your earlier comments made me think that HTML 5 might be about
stronger validation as you were worried about what MathPlayer might do
with bad markup and suggested that refusing to render the document might
be the right response. I see this as inconsistent with the position of
<math> tags not indicating what XML namespace they represent and
comments like, "... all they really want is to throw maths into their
document." 

So, this made me wonder what HTML 5 really was supposed to be. The name
would imply that it is HTML's tag soup extended with some new stuff like
MathML and, perhaps, with some of the worst soup removed if it was
deemed unnecessary to compatibility with all the HTML out in the world
and the tools that make it. I would also assume that since your WHATWG
document (http://whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/) seems to
distinguish between XHTML5 and HTML5 that they are versions of XHTML and
HTML enhanced in parallel ways. Am I wrong?

Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Hickson [mailto:ian@hixie.ch] 
> Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 12:42 PM
> To: Roger B. Sidje
> Cc: Paul Topping; David Carlisle; www-math@w3.org; 
> dev-tech-mathml@lists.mozilla.org
> Subject: Re: MathML-in-HTML5
> 
> On Wed, 4 Oct 2006, Roger B. Sidje wrote:
> > 
> > Even if the exceptional circumstance is made more specific? 
> There is 
> > probably zero page with the specific attribute-value pair <math 
> > xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
> 
> If we only allow that particular case, then why not simplify 
> it further:
> 
>    <math>
> 
> 
> > I would guess that MathML authors/generators would be 
> comfortable with 
> > that. More importantly, the sure guarantee would be the 
> absence of any 
> > rendering on the screen... (With that, they can't forget.)
> 
> It's not a matter of forgetting, it's a matter of wasted time 
> trying to 
> understand an obscure concept when all they really want is to 
> throw maths 
> into their document.
> 
> -- 
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                
> )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   
> _\  ;`._ ,.
> Things that are impossible just take longer.   
> `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
>

Received on Wednesday, 4 October 2006 20:07:23 UTC