[whatwg] Re: Rendering Unknown Elements and IE Support

[Matthew Raymond]

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>   What?  Well, I'm going to interpret this question as being /why have 
> an XHTML module for web apps, web forms and web controls?/, because I 
> don't think we're talking about the benefits of XHTML modularization.

    Is there any real reason that the elements, attribute, etc., in the 
WHAT WG specifications can't be divided up into XHTML 1.1 modules while 
still existing in HTML? I may be ignorant in this regard. Do different 
XHTML modules have different namespaces or something?

>   While I don't necessarily agree with extending the HTML 4 forms, and 
> would prefer encouraging the use of XForms, I do agree that there should 
> be a additional markup that is more suited to web applications. Semantic 
> structures to markup those commonly used in web applications would be 
> very useful, and would be much betther than trying to get authors to use 
> semantic elements which are more well suited to documents.

    I generally agree: I greatly prefer semantic elements to 
presentational ones. Allowing style sheets and browser vendors to define 
how various Web App 1.0 controls work is better than having it defined 
by a specification.

>   I think these extensions should be implemented as XHTML modules, as 
> specified in XHTML modularization,

    I seem to remember Ian saying something about this. Perhaps he could 
chime in on this one.

> however it may also be good if it was 
> extended to a completely standalone markup language, seperate from 
> XHTML; although there are features that will be common between documents 
> and web applications (such as hyperlinks, embedded objects/images, 
> scripting, etc. so it may be best to keep them combined as modules.

   Wanna form an XUL standardization work group? ;)