Re: [CSS21] Test Suite

Ian Hickson wrote:

> On Fri, 23 Jul 2004, Thomas Scholz wrote:
>>>
>>> Just trigger standards more. To do that, just make sure the first
>>> thing in the document is an HTML4 Strict DOCTYPE.
>>
>> I can't. You too.
>> <http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:Dg36FzGJF20J:ln.hixie.ch>
>
> Actually that's a good example of the heuristic doing exactly what it was
> designed to do.
>
> The idea behind DOCTYPE-triggered rendering mode switching is to detect
> legacy documents that were written expecting the rendering of old,
> non-compliant UAs.

So your site is written for old UAs? Come on! ;)
I tried just to illustrate the point that there are a lot of possibilities  
that other software (proxies, firewalls, antivirus programs...) could  
insert some code at the top of a HTML document. That's the most fragile  
part of any document.

> How would _you_ do it? The requirements are that it be
> determined before parsing begins (i.e. before the first element),

But detecting the document type declaration requires already a parsing. Or  
do I miss something?

> and that valid strict documents be rendered in strict mode and that
> legacy content (cnn.com, microsoft.com, etc) be rendered in quirks mode.

I don't know how to do it. But I wouldn't make it irreversible. Why not  
use just the first need of error recovery?

>> While I see the problem behind the idea of doctypeswitching, I really,
>> really hate the solution. It never worked and it will never work.
>
> Quite the contrary. It has issues, but it has worked better than every
> other proposed solution could have.

I'm not convinced, but I haven't seen the other proposals. Is there a list  
somewhere?

Thomas

Received on Friday, 30 July 2004 19:20:26 UTC