[whatwg] Allow trailing slash in always-empty HTML5 elements?

[Mike Schinkel]

Ian Hickson wrote:
>> 
>> On Thu, 30 Nov 2006, Mike Schinkel wrote:
>> > 1.) I read the FAQ http://blog.whatwg.org/faq/ and it seemed to imply 
>> > that HTML 5 and XHTML where not at odds with each other?  Did I misread

>> > that, because from comments on this thread I get the impression that 
>> > might not be the case.
>> 
>> They're just differently serialisations. One is for text/html, the other 
>> for XML. You can use one or the other, it basically only depends on 
>> whether you want to send it as text/html or not.
>> 

That is a good explanation, thank you.

Even though they are both serializations, the vast majority of people
producing HTML/XHTML are not doing it by serializing, they are doing it by
string concatonation and merging templates. Unfortunately, no matter how
much it's lamented that this is the wrong way to do it, it's not going to
change by a significant amount and hence it would seem to me to be the
enlightened thing to acknowledge and strive to converge HTML with XHTML over
time, as much as reasonably possible.

Another very beneficial thing would be to ensure there are reference
implementations of open source or public domain serializers for XHTML and
HTML as part of the spec in all major languages and platforms. That way
there would be a fighting chance that the next generation of web apps would
implement proper serialization and pipelines instead of reverting to string
concatonation because the other is just too hard. That way there is a
greater likelyhood of the next WordPress will be developed with a proper
architecture.

JMTCW anyway.

-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org/