| ▲ | wahern 2 hours ago |
| HTML5 could have taken the extra step of defining a canonical XML or XML-compatible DOM encoding, or at least encouraged it. But the anti-XML sentiment was explicit and spiteful. Still, popular XSLT processors are built to consume and even produce HTML5, I'm just not sure how thorough those capabilities are or whether they're based on any formal or informal standards. (Maybe the W3C has/had something like that, as part of it's attempts to rollup HTML5 snapshots into versioned standards?) I lost any enthusiasm for XML after my experience with WDDX and XML-RPC, but as a foundation for HTML it was the best thing going. And maybe still is, given the absence of cross-toolchain contenders? Ditto for XSLT, at least if disregarding the choice to make the syntax homoiconic. In fact I circled back to XSLT long after it was clear it was a dead end. A good tool is a good tool, and the fact it remains so despite the wanton neglect only proves it. |
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| ▲ | masklinn 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > HTML5 could have taken the extra step of defining a canonical XML or XML-compatible DOM encoding, or at least encouraged it. Yeah and then we could have called it xhtml5. Too bad that does not exist. Oh wait https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/xhtml.html > But the anti-XML sentiment was explicit and spiteful. No, xhtml was just a bad idea creating tons of problems and solving none. |
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| ▲ | kllrnohj 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > xhtml was just a bad idea creating tons of problems and solving none. Well an XHTML parser (and serializer) is a lot simpler, which is a pretty meaningful problem to solve. What problems does xhtml create? | | |
| ▲ | bazoom42 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > Well an XHTML parser (and serializer) is a lot simpler Perhaps, but a combined html and xhtml parser is more complex than just a html parser. Since html already is entrenched, xhtml would be in addition to html, not instead of. | |
| ▲ | smallerize 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The main one is that even a slightly broken XHTML document will fail to render. HTML is much more forgiving. | | |
| ▲ | JoshTriplett 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | With the benefit of hindsight, if the web had been that way from the beginning, I think we would have been better off. The moment you tested your content in any browser, you'd immediately see if it was broken. But it wasn't something that could get introduced later, after all the broken content that already existed. | | |
| ▲ | ktpsns an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | With all respect - the opposite is true. The web succeeded because HTML and HTTP are easy standards easily writable by humans with text editors. HTML was writable by non-programmers. | | |
| ▲ | JoshTriplett an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't think "parsed strictly" makes something hard; on the contrary, I think it's helpful to make something easy. Clear feedback, easy to test. But then, I've always preferred strongly typed over stringly typed. | | |
| ▲ | joshuamorton an hour ago | parent [-] | | This imagines HTML as code and not markup. The reason HTML and markdown are more widely adopted than latex is because the former are more forgiving. | | |
| ▲ | JoshTriplett an hour ago | parent [-] | | I am thinking of it as markup. I stand by the point: I think "forgiving" is not a feature in parsing; it's a bug. |
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| ▲ | leoc an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's not obviously so. The adoption of JS wasn't particularly hindered by the fact that users have to match their brackets and generally avoid syntax errors. |
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| ▲ | Conan_Kudo an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah, I think SGML HTML as the first pass was a mistake. All my early websites were XHTML until people called them "bad"... |
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| ▲ | jxramos 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I'm curious, what exactly in the DOM is not XML-compatible? |
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| ▲ | degamad an hour ago | parent [-] | | From long-lost memory, I think it's implicitly closed tags (e.g. img). | | |
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