[whatwg] Using the HTML5 DOCTYPE as a new quirksmode switch

Ian Hickson ian at hixie.ch
Mon Jun 18 21:45:59 PDT 2007


On Sat, 10 Mar 2007, Jorgen Horstink wrote:
> 
> As far as I understand it, the new DOCTYPE switch is meant to 'tell' to 
> browser the document follows the HTML5 specification.

No, the new DOCTYPE is merely meant to trigger standards mode (as opposed 
to quirks mode).


> HTML5 is set up to be backwards compatible with HTML4 documents. The 
> opposite does not hold. There must be at least one new DOCTYPE to 'tell' 
> the browser HTML5 is being served.

No, the opposite does in fact hold. It shouldn't matter whether the 
document is HTML5 or HTML4 or earlier; they all have the same processing 
rules, given by the HTML5 spec.

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



More information about the whatwg mailing list