[whatwg] several messages about XML syntax and HTML5

[Sam Ruby]

Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Sam Ruby wrote:
>>> Case in point:
>>>
>>>    http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2006/12/01/The-White-Pebble
>>>
>>> In IE, there's some stray "XHTML HTML" and "XHTML HTML XML" text. This 
>>> isn't acceptable to most people. It certainly isn't something that it 
>>> would make sense to encourage. The worst possible outcome here would 
>>> be for browsers like IE to start trying to parse this "SVG" in 
>>> text/html, because the lack of any sensible parsing rules for it would 
>>> guarentee that we're faced with even more "tag soup", thus undoing all 
>>> the work that the HTML5 spec is trying to do to get us past that.
>> You are aware that I like to "tweak" IE users, right?
>>
>> With the current technology, this could have been avoided with a single 
>> div and two lines of CSS.  And I am most capable of doing that.
> 
> But that wouldn't help, e.g., Lynx users.

Over a period of years, I would think that a requirement like the one 
below could be phased in (presuming that one could be found to work).  I 
have no expectation that Lynx would ever support a real XHTML mode.

>> In the longer run, I do believe that an architected simple rule like:
>>
>>    xmlns attributes are invalid on HTML elements except html, and
>>    when found on unrecognized attributes imply style="display:none"
>>    unless you recognize the value of this attribute.
>>
>> ... would channel those with insane desires to make extensions into 
>> doing so in a manner that is harmless.  Such a rule might take a year or 
>> two to get widely deployed, but the worst feet-draggers won't be 
>> affected any worse than they were in the days when <table> was young.
> 
> There are millions of documents that would be "broken" by such a rule, 
> so browser vendors couldn't actually deploy that, sadly. :-(

Can you identify three independently produced ones?

BTW, I deeply respect the pushback that you give to everybody who thinks 
they want to have a say in the future of HTML.

- Sam Ruby