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Re: ISO-HTML

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From: James Pickering
Date: Jun 30, 2005 10:49PM

Darrel, you wrote:

.......... Reading this discussion, I'm struggling with 'what's the point of
ISO HTML?' ..........

It represents a stable and reliable "core" of mature HTML 4.01 elements and
attributes. Others have pointed out its shortcomings as a practical,
everyday implementation -- I use it as a tool for producing my own "core"
valid Markup -- I can use such documents/fragments/modules in various
"flavors" of HTML/XHTML with the sure knowledge that they will work
correctly.

I am currently presenting my Web pages as ISO-HTML only to illustrate its
"strictness" -- I will soon revert them to HTML 4.01 (strict) -- my current
implementation of choice.

In order to present my pages as XHTML -- 1.0 (soon to be 2.0) and/or basic
and 1.1 -- they would have to be correctly served as Content-type:
application/xhtml+xml (as previously discussed) and such pages break to
various degrees in MSIE 5x/6x Browsers -- currently the most used/popular
rendering agents (in most instances they serve a downloadable file). XHTML
1.0 documents served as Content-type text/html are mostly rendered as HTML
and are treated as "tag soup" by compliant Browsers.

There is a link to an exemplar XHTML 1.0 (Strict) version of my Home page
served as Content-type: application/xhtml+xml which can be examined via the
URL link in my signature block below.

BTW, the W3C Markup Validator Extended Interface displays the Document
Content-type -- a quick way to see how it is actually being served.

James Pickering
Pickering Pages
http://www.jp29.org/



----- Original Message -----
From: "Austin, Darrel" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 8:43 AM
Subject: RE: [WebAIM] ISO-HTML


>
>> They can issue standards on anything they want, including how
>> many chocolate chips are standard in a half-kilogram bag of
>> chocolate-chip cookies. However, I think this 'standard'
>> being revered as anything more than just a renamed
>> recommendation goes against the open nature of the World Wide
>> Web
>
> Reading this discussion, I'm struggling with 'what's the point of ISO
> HTML?'
>
> Was there a problem out there that they were trying to resolve with an ISO
> standard?
>
> Seems more like a 'hey...here's something we haven't put together an
> arbitrary standard for yet...get on that!' thing.
>
>> If ISO-html goes beyond W3C recommendations, it goes too far.
>> If ISO-html stops short of W3C recommendations, it doesn't
>> go far enough.
>> If ISO-html matches W3C recommendations specifically, why bother?
>
> I completely agree.
>
> -Darrel
>
>
>
>