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

Wed Mar 7 12:47:34 PST 2007

(I sent this to the list already, but I think it didn't appear because I  
sent it with the wrong e-mail address.)

I'm not sure if it has been discussed earlier, but after seeing Chris
Wilson's talk on «Browser Wars Episode II: Attack of the DOMs»[1] I think
it's pretty obvious that Internet Explorer needs a new switch of some
sort, to be allowed to implement and fix the DOM, JavaScript, CSS1-3 etc.
without breaking backward compatibility. At least that's what Chris Wilson
says.

And I agree. Internet Explorer needs a new switch. So I thought, what
about using:

    <!DOCTYPE html>

as the new switch? If HTML5 will be ratified into a stable standard
document, perhaps in the W3C, it should be a viable target for the
Internet Explorer team although they are not actively participating in the
development of the standard. And as such, the HTML5 DOCTYPE can be used as
a new switch to allow for an even stricter and more correct implementation
of CSS, HTML and so on.

There has been some discussion about using MIME types (e.g.
'application/xhtml+xml') as a new switch (I distantly recall it going on
at annevankesteren.no, but I can't find it at the moment), but since it's
very unlikely that Internet Explorer will support that for a long time,
and since HTML5 is backward compatible with HTML4, the HTML5 DOCTYPE might
be a much better option.

So, what do you think?

___
[1]  
<http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?oid=dc16aa88896b39b6&rurl=video.yahoo.com>

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