Re: META
Ian Graham (igraham@utirc.utoronto.ca)
Thu, 6 Jul 95 14:44:25 EDT
Joe English wrote:
> Eric Bina <ebina@netscape.com> wrote:
> > Joe English <joe@trystero.art.com> says:
...........
> This is another case where authors who use new features
> (in this case <!ELEMENT NEWTAG - O EMPTY>) will need
> to explicitly include </HEAD> and/or <BODY> if they
> want to ensure compatibility with level 2 browsers.
**************
> (I would be in favor of making <HEAD>, </HEAD>, <BODY>, and </BODY>
> mandatory in HTML 2.1 for this and other reasons. They're
> only currently omissible for compatibility with level 1
> documents, which -- I assume -- will still be parsed according
> to the 2.0 spec since they lack a <!DOCTYPE> declaration.
> (I would also be in favor of mandating the <!DOCTYPE...> declaration
> as well...))
Amen. I suggested earlier that being backwards-compatible is fine,
but that it might better be expressed in guidelines to user-agent
designers, rather than in an overly-generous HTML DTD. User-agent
designers will *always* have to be liberal in interpreting the DTD,
since mistakes will happen, and for backwards-compatibility. At
the same time, if the formal specs require design that makes it
easer to resolve errors, as well as harder to create errors (i.e.,
people who write by hand, but who learned a rigorous DTD, will be
less likely to make grievous mistakes), then all the better.
---
Ian