Re: Validator errors

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 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)). 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).



[0] - Unless we assume nothing[1] and let people override an erroneous or
      missing DOCTYPE.

[1] - Assumption is the Mother of all Fuckups! :-)

Received on Sunday, 30 January 2000 17:56:12 UTC