[Bug 23388] New: Item #4 of the DOM Window Named Item should not allow nor endorse conflation of the name and id namespaces

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=23388

            Bug ID: 23388
           Summary: Item #4 of the DOM Window Named Item should not allow
                    nor endorse conflation of the name and id namespaces
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Hardware: PC
                OS: Windows NT
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML5 spec
          Assignee: dave.null@w3.org
          Reporter: scunliffe.bugzilla@gmail.com
        QA Contact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-admin@w3.org,
                    public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org

>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.

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Received on Saturday, 28 September 2013 02:15:56 UTC