RE: [xml-dev] What is the rule for parsing XML in a namespace inside HTML?

["Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@microsoft.com>]

> The subject says it.   If HTML has an XML
> namespace inside it, is the Draconian parse
> rule still in effect?

Only if parsing with an XML parser.  It's OK for HTML to contain
whatever, since HTML doesn't know about XML anyway.

In fact, IE has the convention of embedding "data islands" meant to be
parsed as XML inside <xml> tags in the HTML document.  Of course, a tag
name <xml> is not well-formed XML, but it's OK as HTML.

> all lead to the conclusion that it is a bad
> idea to use XML inside HTML because the rules
> aren't the same.

Well, it works OK with the IE convention described above, because the
rules are clear -- up to and including the <xml> tag, use HTML rules;
for everything inside the <xml> tag, use the draconian rules.  In
general it could be confusing, though.

> And that could be a reason to deprecate HTML
> altogether.

That would be baby with bathwater, IMO.  Browser support for XHTML is
pretty bad; it's more faked than real.  HTML works great; no reason to
throw it out.