[whatwg] HTML6 Doctype

[Garrett Smith]

On 8/24/10, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Aug 2010, David Bruant wrote:
>> >
>> > It's likely that there won't be an HTML6 --
>>
>> "unlikely" (likely-won't) doesn't mean that there won't be. The
>> eventuality should probably not be thrown away that easily. Twenty years
>> ago, who could have predicted what happened until today ? Can we already
>> predict what is going to (not) happen twenty or one hundred years from
>> now ? I think that this statement should be very carefully justified.
>
> Fair enough. I don't think it changes anything in this particular case
> though.
>
>
>> > not because HTML5 will be the last version, but because we've moved to
>> > an unversioned development model where there is simply a
>> > continually-maintained HTML specification that is always current.
>>
>> If, when you say "we", you mean "the WHATWG and the W3C", this is
>> incoherent with what is written here :
>> http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#When_will_HTML5_be_finished.3F
>
> That was out of date. Fixed. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
>
>
>> Can both [the W3C and the WHATWG] work on the same spec and at the same
>> time for one having a mature enough specification to say "this is a
>> Recommendation" and the other saying "this is still in progress" ?
>
> IMHO the idea of having a recommendation is out-dated,

Having clear delineation of a set of features being a recommendation
has its drawbacks. There's the aspect of getting the whole thing done
before it can be recommended or normatively cited, then there's
postmortem.

Having distinction of any one feature being official recommendation is
valuable. Think about it: An official recommendation should be more
widely supported and using it would have fewer forwards compatibility
issues.

>
>> How can a HTML validator be written ? Should it be
>> continually-maintained as well, making correct document incorrect and
>> vice-versa depending on the validation day ?
>
> Yes, just like browsers are continually maintained.
>
Not necessarily "just like", but similarly to. Validation rules might,
for example, not parse features that are too new or might warn about
usage of features that have not reached a certain level of maturity.