On Apr 10, 2007, at 8:12 PM, Sam Ruby wrote:
Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
On Apr 10, 2007, at 2:14 PM, Sam Ruby wrote:
Anne van Kesteren wrote:
On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 22:41:12 +0200, Sam Ruby
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
How so?
I missed the part where you wanted to change existing HTML
parsers. I thought Hixie pointed out earlier (by means of
examples) why we can't have namespace parsing in HTML. I suppose
we can discuss it again...
It is a recurring pattern. The first instance was "we can't
allow trailing slashes in tags", which was followed up by a
carefully crafted and narrow set of exceptions, which was met
with "that works" and was adopted.
So... while it is clearly true the full extent of XML namespames
will never be supported in HTML5 (and for good reason), namespace
qualified attributes allow extensibility in ways that prevent
collisions.
One of the first questions that would need to be answered: are
there any existing documents on the web which would be broken if
the name placed into the DOM for attributes with names containing
a colon, with an apparent prefix, and one that matched an
enclosing xmlns: declaration were to be changed?
I think the problem here isn't compatibility with existing
content, but rather ability to use the feature in new web content
while still gracefully handling existing user agents. We wrote up
some design principles for the HTML WG based on the WHATWG's
working assumptions which might make this point more clear:
<http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ProposedDesignPrinciples>. While
"Don't Break The Web" is a goal, so is "Degrade Gracefully".
To give a specific example: say I make my own "mjsml" prefix with
namespace "http://example.org/mjsml";. In HTML4 UAs, to look up an
"mjsml:extension" attribute using getAttribute("mjsml:extension").
In HTML5 UAs, I'd have to use getAttributeNS("http://example.org/
mjsml", "extension"). And neither technique would work on both (at
least as I understand your proposal).
Here's a page I constructed, and tested on Firefox:
http://intertwingly.net/stories/2007/04/10/test.html
This page is meant to be served as application/xhtml+xml.
Can you test it and see what results you get? Then lets discuss
further.
In Safari 2.0.4: Processed as HTML, it says "data" and then "".
Processed as XHTML, it says "null" and then "data".
In Opera 9.00: Processed as HTML, it says "data" and then "null".
Processed as XHTML, it says "null" and then "data".
In Firefox 2.0.0.3: Processed as HTML, it says "data" and then "".
Processed as XHTML, it says "data" and then "data".
In IE/Mac 5.2: Processed as HTML, it says "data" and the second alert
does not appear. Processed as XHTML, neither alert appears.
It looks like Firefox's XHTML implementation already has the
getAttribute extension I suggested of handling QNames.
By the way, the fact that no two of the browsers I tested treat this
the same is a pretty clear indicator that DOM Core needs the HTML5
treatment.
Regards,
Maciej
