html5 - What does the WHATWG working standard mean by the note "At the time of writing, no such rules actually exist"? -

html5 - What does the WHATWG working standard mean by the note "At the time of writing, no such rules actually exist"? -

reading whatwg living standard found note in 13.2 parsing xhtml documents.

an xml parser, purposes of specification, build follows rules given in xml specification map string of bytes or characters document object.

note: @ time of writing, no such rules exist.

and word document links html dom document (the thing has title , collection of forms, etc.)

it appears exclusively undermine purpose of definition above it, , thereby of section 13.2 depends on definition. there more subtle way of interpreting it?

(to avoid beingness open-ended philosophical question, interested in known whatwg author's opinions, e.g. quotes (and links to) supporting blog posts great.)

ian hickson, author/editor of said living standard has said

"i’m proud of html parser specification"

it's state machine converting text/html input stream dom document. normative part of quoted text acknowledging fact xhtml syntax, equivalent rules responsibility of xml spec.

the nature of xml though, parsing can inferred xml syntax definition alone, xml spec doesn't define precise parsing rules in same fashion. note saying, "don't bother looking them, because they're not there".

other that, doesn't matter. implementors don't seem have difficulty implementing xml parsers interoperably, works nicely.

if doesn't satisfy you, seek asking him directly. whatwg irc place start.

html5 xml-parsing xhtml