Re: [W3C docs] We should teach by example.

On 7/6/07 1:16 PM, "Smylers" <Smylers@stripey.com> wrote:

>  The point of the HTML syntax is that it's more
> lax, more foregiving of unimportant differences.

I thought that was the _problem_ with html syntax.
Isn't that what led to the unstructured, invalid, lazily coded web we have
today?

... And then your lengthy explanation of which elements must be closed
explicitly, which must have optional closing tags... I read it to a
not-so-beginner and it was obvious their brain drifted off into to space by
the 2nd bullet point.

I strongly believe that just teaching them to close all their tags properly
will "almost guarantee" that it will just work in all browsers (except IE).

FYI I've had dozens of occasions where not quoting 1 attribute on a form
element in an otherwise valid page resulted in either IE or Firefox totally
breaking the form. 

I think having to work out exactly how user agents should react when faced
with mixed usage of quoted/unquoted attribute values and explicitly
closed/optionally closed tags is just a ton of extra work both for the group
and the implementers.

I would want it to be that a document is not valid unless ALL
tags/attributes conform to either:
(a)absolutely no quoted attributes and any optionally closed tags should be
without a closing tag
(b) all attributes quoted and all tags properly closed. That way the "lazy"
coders must put in the effort to be 100% "lazy" and valid. And the people
who like xhml can put in the same amount of work they're already accustomed
to and make the same 100% valid documents they're already familiar with
making.

This way even the lazy programmers have to put in a small amount of
education time to make sure they're building valid structured documents.
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Received on Wednesday, 11 July 2007 13:59:30 UTC