Re: [xml-dev] HTML 5 vs XHTML 2 (was: The Best Technologies Don't Win)

[Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@gmx.net>]

* Eric van der Vlist wrote:
>The only solution to avoid this kind of issues is not to increase but to
>reduce the number of elements and add mechanisms to express not only the
>style (like it is the case with the class attribute) but also the
>intention (or semantics even if this term doesn't mean much any longer)
>of elements.
>
>XHTML 2.0 is going in that direction which seems to be the only safe and
>wise one while HTML 5 is going in the opposite direction and looks to me
>like a regression in many aspects.

XHTML 2 increases the element count by 50% compared to XHTML 1.0 Strict,
and by 10% compared to HTML 2.0, HTML 3.2, HTML 4.01, and XHTML 1.1 com-
bined, including the Frameset and Transitional variants. I am unsure how
you could consider that going into the direction of "not to increase but
to reduce the number of elements".

When evaluating XHTML 2.0 I recommend http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/future/
as starting point. There you can find:

  In discussions, it was agreed that further extending HTML 4.0 would
  be difficult, as would converting 4.0 to be an XML application. The
  proposed way to break free of these restrictions is to make a fresh
  start with the next generation of HTML based upon a suite of XML
  tag-sets.

When asked about extensibility of XHTML 2.0, to avoid that XHTML 2.0
will face the same fate of having to be replaced by an entirely new
and incompatible format, twice, the HTML Working Group responds: "at
this time the Working Group has no ready solution". So on both of your
counts -- less elements, improved extensibility -- XHTML 2.0 scores
quite badly. Meanwhile they are still working on a "usable" DTD for
it, <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2004Jul/0236>.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
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