[whatwg] Attribute for holding private data for scripting

[Anne van Kesteren]

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:14:16 +0200, Sam Ruby <rubys at intertwingly.net>  
wrote:
>> I missed the part where you wanted to change existing HTML parsers. I  
>> thought Hixie pointed out earlier (by means of examples) why we can't  
>> have namespace parsing in HTML. I suppose we can discuss it again...
>
> It is a recurring pattern.  The first instance was "we can't allow  
> trailing slashes in tags", which was followed up by a carefully crafted  
> and narrow set of exceptions, which was met with "that works" and was  
> adopted.

Whether or not trailing slashes are allowed doesn't affect parsers in  
existing browsers or any other parsers compatible with the web for that  
matter. They merely affect conformance. This contrary to what you're  
suggesting here (again).


> So... while it is clearly true the full extent of XML namespames will  
> never be supported in HTML5 (and for good reason), namespace qualified  
> attributes allow extensibility in ways that prevent collisions.
>
> One of the first questions that would need to be answered: are there any  
> existing documents on the web which would be broken if the name placed  
> into the DOM for attributes with names containing a colon, with an  
> apparent prefix, and one that matched an enclosing xmlns: declaration  
> were to be changed?


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