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

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

> I dunno Joshua.  It seems to me that grandfathering
> HTML leads to problems worse than actually creating
> an XML browser that knows it is one.  My particular

Depends on what problem you are trying to solve.  If you don't care so
much about ubiquity, sticking with HTML might be worse.

> bug is fixable, but it tells me that when using
> XML inside non-XML, I can't trust rules I thought
> I could trust.  It should know that the VML is an

I don't know; I don't think a web browser should try to parse XML
anymore than an FTP application should.  In either case, the XML is just
a payload; the behavior is correctly undefined by the HTML spec.

I'm really suspicious of calls to rewrite a better, XML-aware browser.
"Better" is always in theory; in practice you end up with tons of bugs
and unintended consequences.  XHTML purists have had a number of years
to prove their thesis, and all they have proved is that the "pure" way
results in yet more complexity for web developers, no appreciable
benefit, and new bugs.