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

Sat Mar 10 12:21:11 PST 2007

On 3/10/07, Mihai Sucan <mihai.sucan at gmail.com> wrote:
> actually I'm skeptical about this. First impression I had reading
> the first post was "hey, do we need yet another switch?". What's
> "super-duper" standards mode after all?

>From <http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=cccd4aa02a3993ab06e56af731346f78.2006940&fr=>,
I got that  the standard doctypes we have now that trigger standards
mode in IE are a problem.

It seems that even in standards mode, people expect some quirky
behavior and MS wants to retain the quirkyness even in standards mode.
If they continue to fix standards mode, they'll break way too many
sites.

It seems that they are searching for a way to trigger a real standards
mode without retaining any of those quirks and without messing with
normal standards mode.

<!DOCTYPE html>, could be used by IE to trigger a standards mode minus
any quirks.

In short, IE's standards mode is not really a standards mode. It's
just a less quirky quirks mode. They want a way to move on with
following standards without affecting the current standards mode.

So, IE would have quirks mode, standards mode and a strict standards mode.

As for other browsers that still retain a few IE compatibilities in
standards mode, when they see <!DOCTYPE html>, that might be their
chance to ditch any behavior that was just added in to be compatible
with IE. (but that depends)

But, mainly, it'd be a tool for MS to move on. For other browsers,
just keep the bug fixing coming.

That's what I got out of the video.

-- 
burnout426