XHTML validation, CVS notifications (was Re: Validator errors)

On Sun, Jan 30, 2000 at 11:58:03PM +0100, Terje Bless wrote:
> On 30.01.00 at 13:22, Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com> wrote:
> >2.  Gerald needs to rethink the utility of having the default be
> >     XHTML 1.0.  While I can see -why- he'd choose this -- the W3C
> 
> Oh Crap!
> 
> This explains the rush of weird error reports the last couple
> of days. :-(
> 
> You can't make XHTML the default for documents without a
> DOCTYPE; it'll break just about anything out there. I thought
> the idea of serving XHTML as text/html was pure idiocy to start
> with, but if you start assuming it's XHTML in the validator
> you've thoroughly broken backwards compatibility.
> 
> The only way to handle this that won't break badly is to assume
> that text/xml is XML, text/xhtml is XHTML, text/html is HTML
> 4.01[0], unless a DOCTYPE is given in which case the DOCTYPE is
> used.

I think I'll do something like:

  - if the content type is text/html and there's no doctype, then
  
    - if there's an xmlns attribute on the first element,
      do XML well-formedness checking (as it does now for
      any text/html docs without doctypes)
    
    - if there's no xmlns attribute on the first element,
      assume HTML 4 transitional (and whine about the missing
      doctype)

> I was afraid this was due to bugs in my DOCTYPE guessing code,
> but I see from the cvsweb log that is from the changes in 1.58.
> We really do need committ reports sent to a mailinglist
> somewhere, Gerald. If you need a hand in setting it up on
> dev.w3.org, give me a holler and I'll send you details of how
> it's done (it's explained in The Cederquist (CVS manual)).

Sorry, I meant to send mail to this list after making the most
recent changes, but I finished them at 3am after an all-nighter
the night before, and I didn't feel like doing anything besides
sleep at that point. :)

I set up the CVS notifications just now; future commits will
cause a message to sent to this list. I just added this line
to the CVSROOT/loginfo file:

    ^validator    mail -s %s www-validator@w3.org

> It might also be a good idea to committ to CVS, and run a test
> server, _before_ making the code live on validator.w3.org. That
> way the peanut gallery can get their two cents in before going
> live (and occationally the peanut gallery has a point ;D).

I have a test server:

    http://validator.w3.org:8000/

but in this case we wanted the validator to be ready for the
XHTML REC press release last Wed, and I didn't have it ready
earlier so there wasn't much time for feedback. :(

-- 
Gerald Oskoboiny       <gerald@w3.org>  +1 617 253 2920
System Administrator   http://www.w3.org/People/Gerald/
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)      http://www.w3.org/

Received on Tuesday, 1 February 2000 19:42:58 UTC