Re: doctype tip lacks motivation

hello Dan,

Thanks for the feedback on this draft tip (it is a draft, isn't it... 
checking, yes.)

On Monday, Dec 2, 2002, at 15:01 Asia/Tokyo, Dan Connolly wrote:

>
> I found this draft tip:
>
>   Don't forget to add a doctype - Quality Web Tips
>   http://www.w3.org/2001/06tips/Doctype

> Does anybody have any evidence that
> "browsers may not behave correctly if you
> don't set a proper Doctype"?

As far as I know, the last generation of browsers have two modes, the 
"this document is valid I will behave nicely" mode, and the "damn, no 
doctype, I'll see what I can do" mode (aka quirk mode). Not that they 
differ wildly, but if developers keep following this trend, the 
difference may become sensible.

> I think HTML documents should begin
> like this...
> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
>   <head>

How is this relevant to the QA tip about doctypes?
XHTML1.0 second edition, section 3.1.1, point 4, and HTML 4.01 section 
7.2 both say "Use a doctype". If you want to change this, fine by me, 
but this is for www-html, not here.


> The best motivation I can find is...
>
>   A doctype will allow you to use widely-deployed
>   DTD-based tools (such as this validation service)
>   to find likely errors in your document.

This is a good one, and I will add it.

Thank you.
-- 
Olivier

Received on Monday, 2 December 2002 04:01:58 UTC