[whatwg] several messages about XML syntax and HTML5

[Anne van Kesteren]

On Mon, 04 Dec 2006 08:55:32 +0100, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> * Possible Request D: We want HTML-style graceful error handling for XML
> content.
>
> This is out of scope of the HTML5 specification. Speak to the XML guys.
> XML currently requires draconian error handling and has no defined
> gracefull error handling.
>
> You should ask yourself, though, why is it that you want to use XML, if
> you don't like what it implies?

Partially it's the tools. I use some kind of "XML backend" on my blog  
because there was some tool available that could ensure proper markup if  
it was XML. I'm currently working on solving that problem by contributing  
to the HTML Python parser project. (This also means I've to switch from  
PHP to Python, but that was something I was planning to do anyway in due  
course.)

XML is currently the only way to distribute a feed. I know there's hAtom,  
but it's unclear to me how well supported it is by various feed readers.  
Given that all feed formats support some kind of HTML tag soup it would  
seem indeed better to just have an HTML format for feeds but currently  
there isn't any.

XML is currently the only way to create an SVG DOM without having to write  
your graphic using ECMAScript and DOM methods (and then it wouldn't work  
for background-image etc. unless you allow HTML content there which could  
arguably be allowed).

XML seems to be the only way to create XBL2 content in the future even  
though XBL2 is described in terms of the DOM and not in terms of a  
particular markup language.

Those are the reasons why I want to use XML even though I don't like what  
it implies.


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
<http://annevankesteren.nl/>
<http://www.opera.com/>