[whatwg] Versioning

Wed Mar 14 10:13:46 PDT 2007

On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:20:43 +0100, Robert Brodrecht  
<whatwg at robertdot.org> wrote:
> Anne van Kesteren Wrote
>> IE doesn't have a broken box model in standards mode.
>
> I was under the impression you wanted to throw out different rendering
> modes because they are difficult for implementors.  If so, at least for  
> IE and presumably quirksmode in other browsers, since they tend to mimmic
> IE's quirks), there would be two box models that aren't reconcilable.

No, I don't want to introduce more rendering modes. I explained that  
having standards mode is already a pain. If for Internet Explorer having a  
real standards mode is unavoidable for some reason I'd suggest (and have)  
that they use <!doctype html> in text/html and XML in general to trigger  
it.

>> Authors code against implementations, not specifications.
>
> Yeah, authors eventually end up doing browser testing, and, in that way,
> code against an implementation.  However, I have to look at the
> specification to determine what is valid markup.

You're not a "normal" author then. 97% of the web or so contains syntax  
errors.

> It seems, according to implementations, that HTML, HTML-XHTML, and real
> XHTML all allow "user invented tags."  While they don't validate
> (validating is coding against a spec), the browsers I test on all  
> rendered the content and applied CSS markup.  Except for Safari in real  
> XHTML, the
> element was added to the DOM and accessible with JavaScript.  This seems
> roughly congruent with HTML specs[2], though I don't know if it is
> congruent with CSS specs and DOM specs. However, if I code against the
> implementation, not bothering to code against the specification (e.g. by
> validation or by looking at the specification), I can make up my own
> elements and have them render on the page.
>
> Since validation is a part of the web standards movement, I would say  
> that authors worth their salt will code against both implementations and
> specifications.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the other points made in this thread.

> [1] http://whatwg.robertdot.org/files/20070314-invented-tags/
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/appendix/notes.html#notes-invalid-docs

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