


From: Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:24:46 -0800
Message-ID: <4922C21E.3010201@metalab.unc.edu>
To: Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi>
Cc: Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@MIT.EDU>, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>, "Henry S. Thompson" <ht@inf.ed.ac.uk>, public-html <public-html@w3.org>, www-tag@w3.org

Henri Sivonen wrote:

> This means that agents that do not support scripting may use a different 
> object model. For example, it's conforming to implement a no-scripting 
> agent with XOM as the internal object model. The Validator.nu HTML 
> Parser even supports XOM out-of-the-box.

As you point out XOM instead of DOM is not a big leap. They're both tree 
model after all. I'm more concerned about more radical changes like SAX 
or other streaming APIs or document specific data bound models or even 
stranger things. Is it plausible to extend the HTML 5 parsing model to 
cover this?

I also strongly question the wisdom of locking in one of the absolute 
worst APIs we have. If there's one thing that needs replacing in the 
HTML ecosystem, it's DOM. Sooner or later DOM will be replaced, and if 
HTML 5 is standing in the way when that day comes, then HTML 5 is going 
to come up the loser. Were the object model separable from the syntax 
and semantics, then the sensible parts of HTML 5 would have a better 
chance of surviving the transition.

Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Refactoring HTML Just Published!
Received on Tuesday, 18 November 2008 13:25:21 GMT
