Re: [xml-dev] XMLisms and HTML parsing and modes

[David Carlisle <davidc@nag.co.uk>]

On 16/12/2010 23:38, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> Also, I believe no IETF or W3C HTML spec that pretends HTML to be an
> application of SGML actually enables the NET-enabled start tags.
>
> Am I mistaken?
No, you are not mistaken, although the parsing of /> in html5 isn't 
compatible with html 4 (as specified) either. As you know, it has 
(following a general design philosophy) ignored the html4 (and in this 
case xml) specifications and instead standardised bug compatible 
behaviour with common browsers. Prior to xml no one would have used />
and while it is no doubt true that having got /> into their documents 
for one reason or another people have built in assumptions based on the 
existiing browser parsing, it is still pretty much a disaster that html5 
has _introduced_ this xml based syntax into html but then given it a 
different meaning.

David