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

[Mike Schinkel]

Henri Sivonen wrote:
>> At this point, it is important to realize that 
>> pro-XHTML advocacy 

Who are the pro-XHTML advocates; those one who want divergence, or those who
want HTML5 to interoperate with XHTML as much as possible?

>> This reasoning is then applied to XHTML 
>> served as text/html. This is logical and 
>> intellectually honest if and only if 
>> XHTML_all equals XHTML_compatible.

That is too abstract for me to follow.

>> I'll name the difference of XHTML_all and 
>> XHTML_compatible as XHTML_incompatible. 
>> Lachlan gave examples that indicate that 
>> XHTML_incompatible is not empty. 

I'm sorry but may I please ask for a reference? I unfortunately don't know
where to find that needle in the haystack. Or did you mean Ian Hickson?:
http://hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml

>> Now if you wish to serve your documents 
>> as text/html, it follows that you can't just 
>> happily do things that guarantee that your 
>> documents are members of XHTML_all. 

Which, point of note, wasn't the proposal (at least not mine.)

>> Instead, you have to *make an effort* to 
>> make sure that your documents fall into 
>> XHTML_compatible. 

That's fair and reasonable to require.

>> The equality of XHTML_all and 
>> XHTML_compatible is not true--it is 
>> political obfuscation to hide an 
>> inconvenient truth. 

I'm certainly not trying to obfuscate. 

>> If your documents fell into 
>> XHTML_incompatible, things would 
>> *break*, which would be *bad*. 

I'm not sure that I agree with the assertion that it would be bad (or that
it would be worse than the alternative currently proposed.)

>> This means that you lose any benefits 
>> that hinge on you only having to 
>> ensure targeting XHTML_all.

That is a sweeping statement that minimally discounts the significant
benefit of having less for people to learn. That benefit is so huge it can't
even be easily calculated.

>> unless you specifically want to participate in 
>> upholding a political appearance that doesn't 
>> match the technical reality and in doing so 
>> confuse newbies into believing that the political 
>> obfuscation is the truth (which leads them to 
>> waste time on finding out the truth the hard way).

>From where I sit the only reason it would be untrue is because of a
contigent trying to make it untrue and not willing to steer HTML5 in a
direction more compatible with XHTML.

>> My values involve acknowledging legacy realities, wanting ability to use
XML tools with conforming HTML5 documents after a lossless conversion and
eschewing political obfuscation of technical realities.

I'm in 100% agreement with those, which means that there must be further
hidden values where he differ, possible unconscious values even.  Or maybe
it is because you don't value things I value including minimizing the need
to choose one or the other that doesn't allow later change, minimizing the
need to learn differences, and empowering as many people as possible to
author content.

>> What was sold to you was XHTML_all. Not that 
>> you you have to know how to avoid 
>> XHTML_incompatible.

Not exactly. I was sold on having one direction, not two.

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