[whatwg] On "validation"

[Ian Hickson]

On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> From the spec:
> >    The term "validation" specifically refers to a subset of conformance
> > checking that only verifies that a document complies with the requirements
> > given by an SGML or XML DTD. Conformance checkers that only perform
> > validation are non-conforming, as there are many conformance requirements
> > described in this specification that cannot be checked by SGML or XML DTDs.
> > 
> >    To put it another way, there are three types of conformance criteria:
> > 
> >       1. Criteria that can be expressed in a DTD.
> >       2. Criteria that cannot be expressed by a DTD, but can still be
> > checked by a machine.
> >       3. Criteria that can only be checked by a human.
> > 
> >    A conformance checker must check for the first two. A simple DTD-based
> > validator only checks for the first class of errors and is therefore not a
> > conforming conformance checker according to this specification.
> 
> There are three things I don't like about this note:
> First, it perpetuates the "Validation means only DTD validation" mantra.
> Second, it mentions SGML and XML DTDs casually together.
> Third, it can be read to imply that using a DTD as part of a conformance
> checker is a good idea.

Fixed. Let me know if it's still a problem.


> Suggested replacement text:
> 
> Note: XML DTDs cannot express all the conformance requirement of this 
> specification. Therefore, a validating the XML processor and a DTD 
> cannot constitute a conformance checker. Also, since the two authoring 
> formats defined in this specification are applications of SGML, a 
> validating SGML system cannot constitute a conformance checker.

I used basically this text.


> Since a large part of HTML5 involves aligning in the spec with the real 
> world, perhaps the term "HTML5 validation" should be defined to mean the 
> same as "HTML5 conformance checking". :-)

I have added a paragraph to this effect.

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