[whatwg] The problems with namespaces in text/html (Was: MathML-in-HTML5)

Elliotte Harold elharo at metalab.unc.edu
Sun Nov 5 05:02:52 PST 2006


Lachlan Hunt wrote:

>> I'm not sure why that bothers you. As long as things are well-formed, 
>> what's the harm?
> 
> text/html *does not* enforce well-formedness and *never will*.  That's 
> the problem!

application/xhtml+xml doesn't enforce well-formedness either. That's the 
job of the parser.

If a server sends text/html, and the resulting character stream parses 
as well-formed, then it is well-formed. If it doesn't, it isn't. What 
matters more is what the stream is, not what the server says it is. 
(Yes, I know there are a few details about character encoding detection 
that come into play here. That doesn't change the point, though.)

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo at metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/



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