[whatwg] xml:lang and xmlns in HTML

[Ian Hickson]

On Fri, 1 Dec 2006, Michel Fortin wrote:
> 
> I wonder if xml:lang and xmlns couldn't be made legal in HTML. xml:lang 
> would simply become conformant in HTML as a synonym for the lang 
> attribute, it's already in the spec that it should get the correct 
> treatment anyway.

Except that wouldn't be backwards compatible since xml:lang="" isn't 
treated as a language attribute in legacy UAs.


> This would make it possible to have documents conformant with both 
> syntaxes at the same time.

I thought XHTML-sent-as-text/html had explained in painful detail why 
that's not a desirable end goal. Why would we want this?


> This could also help reinforce the idea that it's the media type that 
> differentiate HTML from XHTML. It'd make many valid XHTML1 documents out 
> there conformant with HTML5 with a mere modification to the doctype.

Not if they use things like <![CDATA[...]]> or the empty element syntax on 
non-void elements, or any number of other XMLisms.


> What do you think?

I don't think it's a goal for the two serialisations to have a common 
subset.

-- 
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