[whatwg] xml:lang and xmlns in HTML

[Robert Sayre]

On 12/1/06, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Dec 2006, Robert Sayre wrote:
> > I don't care if features that rely on XML serialization break.
>
> I *really* don't understand what you're asking for. You want to be able to
> use some features but don't care if they work or not?

I will keep trying. I don't care if XML serialization and namespace
idiosyncrasies need to become marginalized, as DTDs are today. I do
value the ability to add user-defined tags in a decentralized way, but
the only method I care about is using a container element with an
attribute containing a URI to delineate the user-defined content.

>
> > I don't want to use namespaces. I want to use an xmlns attribute.
>
> The only possible reasoning I could see for such a strange request would
> be if you intended to try and parse HTML documents using an XML parser.

No, I want a way to qualify user-defined tags, without introducing
prefix scopes. That is, fine-grained vocabulary mixing is not a goal.

> Could you explain the use case for xmlns="" if you don't actually want
> namespaces?

It's a way to uniquely identify a fence-post, like the SVG example I
posted earlier.

<http://listserver.dreamhost.com/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2006-December/008171.html>

But it is a question, not a request. I don't want to request something
that would be harmful. So, what is the downside of the example in that
earlier email?

-- 

Robert Sayre