RE: MathML-in-HTML5

So do you expect browsers like Mozilla and IE to accept HTML5 and handle
it as defined by your spec? I'm going to guess that your answer is yes
for Mozilla but no or "not my problem" for IE. If so, won't Mozilla have
to have 3 parsers and renderers, one for tag-soup HTML, one for XHTML,
and one for HTML5? Perhaps XHTML and HTML5 can share parsers and perhaps
HTML5 can be rendered by Gecko as is, thereby reducing the number of
pieces somewhat.

Regardless of whether the above is right or wrong, it sounds like you
are saying that adding MathML or <math> to HTML5 is not going to give us
MathML support in everyday tag soup HTML. At the same time, I hear that
Roger Sidje is talking about enhancing Mozilla so that his MathML
renderer will work in everyday tag soup HTML. So perhaps you guys are
talking about two completely separate things in this thread. Do I have
it right?

Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Hickson [mailto:ian@hixie.ch] 
> Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 4:03 PM
> To: Paul Topping
> Cc: www-math@w3.org; dev-tech-mathml@lists.mozilla.org
> Subject: RE: MathML-in-HTML5
> 
> On Wed, 4 Oct 2006, Paul Topping wrote:
> > 
> > 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
> 
> I don't really understand what this means. Stronger than 
> what? In what 
> sense?
> 
> 
> > 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 was merely pointing out that the term "XML islands" 
> suggests XML-like 
> processing, which would imply draconian error handling. I 
> wasn't trying to 
> imply that this was the better solution.
> 
> 
> > 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?
> 
> The WHATWG Web Apps 1.0 specification defines a set of 
> features for Web 
> browsers (mostly existing features previously defined in 
> HTML4 and DOM2 
> HTML, or implemented as proprietary extensions, though there 
> are some new 
> features as well). Most features are described in terms of 
> DOM processing 
> rules, e.g. new DOM interfaces or new rules for handling 
> certain elements 
> in DOM trees. In addition, it defines two serialisation syntaxes for 
> representing documents/applications that use these features. 
> One of these 
> serialisations is just XML (with namespaces); some components 
> of which are 
> to be in the XHTML namespace and are therefore known as 
> XHTML5. The other 
> serialisation is a custom language known as HTML5; the specification 
> defines very specific parsing rules (including error handling 
> rules) for 
> how to obtain a DOM tree from an HTML5 file.
> 
> In the context of HTML5 the term "tag soup" is meaningless, 
> since there 
> is no UA-defined handling anymore, the spec defines all 
> handling (in an 
> attempt to foster increased interoperability).
> 
> HTH,
> -- 
> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                
> )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   
> _\  ;`._ ,.
> Things that are impossible just take longer.   
> `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
>

Received on Thursday, 5 October 2006 00:32:04 UTC