Re: Exploring new vocabularies for HTML

On Mar 31, 2008, at 20:17, Bruce Miller wrote:
> So, Classic MathML, provided it didn't use namespace prefixes, I  
> assume, would be valid to embed in HTML5?

I consider that a requirement (at least when there are no OpenMath  
annotation-xml subtrees).

> Are you referring to the exporting of MathML as XML
> a not-necessarily-mandated "UI feature" ?
> That seems really bad to me.

In general, UI is where HTML5 allows browser-vendors to innovate  
freely. Firefox already has View MathML Source in the context menu, so  
I wouldn't be too worried.

> Besides, if, as you say, MathML as XML would be allowed in HTML5,  
> there'd be no need for a browser to export the HTML5 serialization.

This already came up in the SVG discussion. Even if you allow copying  
and pasting (unprefixed) MathML or SVG XML source into text/html, you  
still need an HTML5 parser and an XML serializer to extract MathML-in- 
text/html or SVG-in-text/html from the Web into XML-only apps *in the  
general case*, because someone out there *will* produce markup that  
parses as HTML5 but not as XML.

If you refuse to use an HTML5 parser either in the browser, as a  
standalone tool or integrated into an importing editor, HTML authors  
have a very simple copy protection mechanism to use against you. :-)

The mistake with insisting on the syntax looking like XML in order to  
enable reuse is the expectation that HTML authors will cooperate with  
you. They won't--either accidentally or deliberately.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Monday, 31 March 2008 19:04:29 UTC