Pete Ciuffetti wrote:
>>At DC4, this group was charged to bash out the details on the two
>>agreed syntaxes for DC in HTML which were broadly:
>> <META NAME=DC.blah.blah CONTENT="(LANG=..)(SCHEME=...) ...">
>> <META NAME=DC.blah.blah LANG=... SCHEME=... CONTENT="...">
>>plus discuss various DC implementation issues (especially on the Web)
>
>Since the DC4 report is not yet online (and since I was not there), I would
>be grateful if someone who was there could briefly summarize the reason for
>two agreed syntaxes. Is it simply because the first of these is HTML 2.0
>compatible? And the second syntax is what would be done if backward
>compatibility were not an issue?
Yes. Note that HTML 2.0 (and hence HTML 3.2) doesn't actually forbid
additional attributes, but states, in section 4.2.1:
"... The entire attribute specification of an unknown attribute
(i.e., the unknown attribute and its value, if any) should be ignored."
Hence LANG and SCHEME are, in a sense, HTML 2.0 compatible. It depends
on just how compatible one wants to be.
The HTML spec always lags 12-18 months behind accepted practice. For
example, HTML 3.2, issued in Jan 1997, "... aims to capture recommended
practice as of early '96 ...". If a sufficiently broad group, including
important vendors, agrees to implement LANG and SCHEME, they will become
accepted practice and will be documented in the next version of HTML.
>Thanks,
>Pete Ciuffetti
>SilverPlatter
Misha
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