additions… #46
…serious fun…
polyglot documents…
I just figured out what I for the most part have been doing for years – creating “polyglot documents.” Nice to know.
From what I can make out this also means I am a “polyglot”, which may be disputable. Anyway, it sounds better than “geek”, so I think I can live with it.
I learned this, for me, new word from following discussions over at the public-html@w3.org, and I don't think they promoted the practice it points at. That doesn't bother me though, as I generally know my way around the various obstacles that may ruin the day – and documents in question.
A great feature with a web standard is that once it's completed – for HTML 5 that's still a few years into the future, we can use it as basis for all sorts of nonsensical creations. Ok, so we can use a web standard to create something that makes sense too – if we like, but that's not so important here and probably won't happen very often anyway.
HTML/XHTML source-code…
Polyglot documents in this context points at the practice of creating source-code that can be served as either HTML or XHTML as one chooses, without breaking neither the HTML nor the XHTML/XML rules and syntaxes. Can be quite a challenge, which I guess is why there are so many non-valid and dysfunctional documents with a doctype that spells “XHTML” spread around on the web.
I have touched onto the xhtml vs. garbage issue before, so no need going over it again. Either web developers get it, or they don't, and what other web developers “get” or not doesn't affect me either way. What browsers get, or not, is what matters, and that's easy to check.
waiting for HTML 5…
Looks like I'll be allowed to continue my polyglot practice within the framework of HTML 5 too, which suits me just fine. This means I can continue to use my crappy editor well into the future, and will only have to modify HTML Tidy ever so slightly so it plays well with (X)HTML 5 capable browsers and validators.
I'm so far not entirely convinced about the need for HTML 5 at all, but it is early days yet. Besides, it doesn't really matter what I may think or not as long as it works. From what I can see it will – one day, so I can follow its progress towards a supported standard, test a little, and wait.
See you around…
sincerely 
Hageland 26.jan.2009
last rev: 30.jan.2009
additions…
