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SVG and MathML in HTML5

• From: Jesper Tverskov <jesper.tverskov@gmail.com>
• To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
• Date: Sat, 28 May 2011 10:58:35 +0200

As we can read in the HTML5 spec, we can nest SVG and MathML inside
not well-formed HTML5 served with mimetype "text/html". We can also
read that SVG and MathML don't need to be well-formed:

http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#mathml
http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#svg-0

The spec asks browsers, but it only asks, to provide a way to export
not well-formed SVG and MathML in a well-formed way in order not to
cause too much trouble for XML tools!

As I see it, we will soon have a situation where most of the SVG and
MathML used in the world, and that actually works in the browsers, are
no longer XML.

HTML5 also allows for HTML and SVG and MathML to be in their proper
namespaces implicitly. You don't need to declare them!

Personally I don't like that a new W3C spec is allowed to undermine
several of the most fundamental concepts of XML. It might make things
marginally easier in HTML but it is bound to cause a lot of trouble in
the XML world.

At least it will be more difficult to teach people what an XML
application is. Some of them also work in HTML and don't have to be
well-formed.

It will be even more difficult than today to make sense out of
namespaces. You must always declare them and when you want to access
markup using namespace with programming, you must also always declare
them in that programming language. Except that in HTML you don't need
to declare them, etc., etc.

Also it is not funny that most SVG and MathML in the future probably
no longer can be edited and manipulated in XML Editors unless the
markup is first made well-formed, namespaces added, etc.

Why have we allowed all this to happen?

Cheers
Jesper Tverskov
http://www.xmlplease.com

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: SVG and MathML in HTML5
    • From: David Carlisle <davidc@nag.co.uk>
  • Re: SVG and MathML in HTML5
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>