[whatwg] several messages about XML syntax and HTML5

[Ian Hickson]

On Sat, 9 Dec 2006, Alexey Feldgendler wrote:
> > 
> > Here's an example. If this:
> > 
> >    ...text...
> >    <new-feature><erroneous content></new-feature>
> >    ...text...
> > 
> > ...displays like this:
> > 
> >    ...text... ...text...
> > 
> > ...in existing browsers, but like this:
> > 
> >    ...text... ERROR ...text...
> > 
> > ...in new browsers, then it looks worse in new browsers than old ones. 
> > Thus, new browsers will want to go back to the way that old browsers 
> > handled it, so that they don't handle it worse than the (old) 
> > competition.
> 
> I disagree with you here.
> 
> [...] if the <new-feature> is completely new, such as the proposed 
> <xmldata>, then the only documents containing <new-feature> would be 
> those that target the new browsers which support it.

You assume that documents targetted at new browsers will not be seen in 
old browsers. This isn't the case (if it was, we wouldn't have people 
trying to send XHTML to HTML UAs). You also assume that documents that 
contain the new feature will not be targetted at older UAs. This is also 
not the case (if it was, we wouldn't have things like <noscript>, 
<noframes>, etc).

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'