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Bug 23388 - Item #4 of the DOM Window Named Item should not allow nor endorse conflation of the name and id namespaces
Summary: Item #4 of the DOM Window Named Item should not allow nor endorse conflation ...
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: HTML5 spec (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: PC Windows NT
: P2 editorial
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Robin Berjon
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
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Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-09-28 02:15 UTC by scunliffe.bugzilla
Modified: 2016-04-22 18:42 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

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Description scunliffe.bugzilla 2013-09-28 02:15:53 UTC 
From the current draft of the spec http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/browsers.html#dom-window-nameditem I find item #4 to be out of place and dangerous if implemented and endorsed.

"HTML elements that have an id content attribute whose value is name."

I've spent the last 12 years of my Web Development career dealing with fixing JavaScript code that incorrectly conflated the ID and NAME namespace causing cross-browser bugs.

The ID attribute http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/dom.html#the-id-attribute is designed as a unique identifier within a document.

Whereas a NAME attribute http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/forms.html#attr-fe-name is designed for naming form controls for HTTP submission and unlike the ID attribute can be duplicated as needed for submitting an Array of values or grouping a set of radio buttons.

I fear that acknowledging the bug with Internet Explorer's getElementById(id) and its non-standard document.all collections and actually perpetuating and endorsing it in HTML5 is damaging to the Web.

Vague API method/property access implementations are not helpful to the development community and should be avoided at all costs.
Comment 1 Arron Eicholz 2016-04-22 18:42:47 UTC 
HTML5.1 Bugzilla Bug Triage: This is handled in this manner for compatibility with the web and browsers.

If this resolution is not satisfactory, please copy the relevant bug details/proposal into a new issue at the W3C HTML5 Issue tracker: https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/new where it will be re-triaged. Thanks!