The new W3C HTML working group launched. The charter states that they’ll attempt convergence with the WHATWG’s recommendation. I remain a little confused with how the browser vendors will handle this.
My main concern comes from the WHATWG’s lack of DTD specification in the DOCTYPE. WHATWG proposes that HTML 5 use <!DOCTYPE html> as the DOCTYPE because browsers don’t care about DTDs. The only reason they include a DOCTYPE is to alert browsers to use standards mode (and DOCTYPE isn’t used in HTML 5 if the page is sent as XML). I think this was short sighted. WHATWG is essentially forking HTML. They made the false assumption that there would be no competing HTML standard. Since browsers would implement WHATWG’s HTML 5, they could take shortcuts. If the WHATWG can fork it, anyone else can.
Now there is a competing standard in the works from W3C. The W3C charter suggests that the W3C HTML Working Group will try to converge with the WHATWG’s HTML. They key word is try.
They didn’t promise compatibility.
Can there be standards with multiple varying recommendations? I think so. That is what DTDs are for. The designer can even write his own DTD if he would like to define his own elements. This isn’t typically done, but it can be. WHATWG’s reasoning is that HTML 5 is no longer an application of SGML, but defines its own syntax.
That’s all well and good, but DTDs at least gave us a way to determine what version of HTML to use, even if it was for our own personal standardizing. Declaring the use of the HTML 3.2 DTD, no matter what version of HTML the browser actually renders against, guarantees that the author attempted to make an HTML 3.2 document. If any problems are introduced (e.g. depreciated elements), at least it isn’t the author’s fault. After all, this standards thing is, in part, about future proofing and there is something to be said about not being on the bleeding edge.
The problem is that if the W3C departs from the WHATWG’s recommendation and agrees to the lack of DTD, there is no way to pick which version of HTML 5 you want (WHATWG’s or W3C’s). If there was some way to sniff DTDs, the designer could tell the browser which to use. WHATWG has ruled that out because, currently, browsers don’t care about DTDs / HTML 5 is not SGML.
Once upon a time, browsers didn’t care about DOCTYPE (as far as I know). When it became necessary to differentiate between standards mode and quirksmode, the DOCTYPE became important. If it becomes necessary to differentiate between versions of HTML 5, browsers may start to care about DTDs.
I imagine the reply to my concern would be, Browsers will support both recommendations, ultimately resulting in a better hybrid implementation of both WHATWG’s and W3C’s recommendations.
This reasoning would work if, for example, WHATWG supported the footer element and W3C did not. The designer could still use the footer element, even though it technically isn’t part of the traditional web standards view (that is, the W3C created standards), and have global browser support (e.g. innerHTML in JavaScript is supported across all browsers, even though it isn’t in the ECMA standard). However, this isn’t ideal. There are reasons to use particular recommendations (e.g. future proofing and avoiding proprietary elements). For longevity, picking a particular recommendation and sticking to it would be good practice, even if browsers supported the hybrid model. For argument’s sake, however, using the hybrid model in this instance isn’t problematic.
The problem will come when the two specifications differ on how to implement a particular element. While it is not the exact same case, compare the Internet Explorer box model to the standard
box model. If, for example, WHATWG described something like the Internet Explorer box model, and W3C described something like the standard
box model, how would the browser know what to choose? It wouldn’t unless it sniffed the entire DOCTYPE tag. Assuming the W3C keeps the DTD, a special case would have to be coded for WHATWG’s HTML that says something like, If there is a DOCTYPE but no DTD, assume it is the WHATWG’s version of HTML.
Again, this isn’t ideal, but it would work. If W3C decides that the DTD isn’t necessary either, there would be no way to determine what the author wanted to use, resulting in a great deal of confusion.
Again, some may reply, Browsers will support both recommendations, ultimately resulting in a better hybrid implementation of both WHATWG’s and W3C’s recommendations.
Presumably, this would eventually trickle up to the two recommendations resulting in normalizing the two documents. Again, I’ll reference the box model. The Internet Explorer team implemented the box model one way. Everyone else implemented it the other way. It was years before the two became congruent (if they even are yet). Until the two documents become normalized based on browser implementations, there will be confusion and incompatibility (aka instability). Further, it has never been a good idea for browser makers to decide what should be standard. If it were, we may have both LAYERs and DIVs. We’d have proprietary filters in our CSS and parts of CSS 2 would have to be axed completely because browsers don’t support them. It’s the job of the standards body / bodies to tell the browsers what they ought to do. It’s not the job of the browser implementation to dictate what standards ought to be.
Simply put, I’m worried about how WHATWG’s HTML and W3C’s HTML will interoperate. It could easily work out, but there could be problems just as easily. Luckily, WHATWG’s HTML isn’t a final recommendation and W3C hasn’t started yet. These problems can still be worked out.