• From: u123724 <u123724@g...>
• To: XML Developers List <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2016 15:06:07 +0100

I've just completed my analysis of W3C's HTML 5.1 recommendation at
http://sgmljs.net/docs/html5.html (from a markup language rather than
web development PoV), and I'm publishing it here for review in the
form of an initial SGML DTD for parsing HTML 5.1, along with a lengthy
analysis text.

I also was wondering if Liam is still maintaining W3C's old SGML-based
HTML validator and would be interested in including these DTDs in it.

I'm aware that WHATWG and W3C have since long moved away from SGML
(and XML in most web-related specification work), treating it as a
legacy technique and with a somewhat presumptuous attitude in the
specification text and elsewhere. But as the analysis of HTML5's
grammar shows, they've essentially abandoned use of any formal methods
alltogether (and it shows in at least two flaws discussed in the
analysis).

I'm not publishing this here to deride the quality of WHATWG's/W3C's
work as a specification (or lack thereof), but are genuinely
interested in feedback from xml-dev, given the massive know-how in
markup technology present here.

Regards,
Marcus
sgmljs.net

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: SGML DTDs for HTML 5.1
    • From: David Carlisle <d.p.carlisle@g...>