A new XHTML PR! (1999-12-10)

[David Megginson]

At the W3C site, I just noticed a new XHTML PR available at

  http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/

I have recently left the W3C's XML activity (for personal and business
reasons only -- it just took way too much time), so I am not privy to
any internal discussions, but it looks like they've got it right this
time around.  Here are some highlights after a very, very cursory
first skim (I may have gripes later after a more careful reading):

1. A single XHTML Namespace, http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml

2. Examples of using elements from other Namespaces inside an XHTML
   document, and of using the XHTML Namespace inside other document
   types (though there are no strict conformance criteria defined for
   either yet).

3. All element and attribute names in lower case.

4. The DOCTYPE declaration is still required for strict XHTML
   conformance (annoying, but I can live with that), and there are
   still three different DTDs.

I am particularly impressed with the HTML WG and with Tim Berners-Lee
for taking the discussion (and debate) out into the open on XML-Dev
rather than keeping it locked up inside the W3C cone of silence.  A
bit of credit should also go to us, the XML-Dev membership, who took a
lot of time debating the different sides of several difficult
questions.


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david at megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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