Re: 2 HTML documents in one

John,

Yes, I've tried it in WDG's validator and  the double HTML tag was 
picked-up, which was pleasing. I've also reviewed the HTML 
specification that gives a typical use of the HTML tag, which is one 
opening tag and one closing tag - super, that all makes sense, and I 
agree with you that it can't be acceptable for the reasons that you 
outline.

However, I was also wondering how say a search engine might deal with a 
double set of meta tags, two body sections etc?

I've also looked at the page via various browsers (inc. Lynx) and all 
seem remarkably forgiving. I wonder whether anyone has any thoughts as 
to what is likely to be a problem with a page like this? One that 
springs to mind is future compatibility; particularly if more rigid 
enforcement of standards is applied in user agents (i.e. less 
forgiving).

Thanks for everyone's comments - I often "lurk" and learn a great deal 
from this interest group.

Phil



On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 12:43  pm, John Foliot - bytown internet 
wrote:

> I'm not sure which validator Patrick was using, but the WDG validator 
> picked
> the double HTML element out right away.
>
> There has been much discussion on this list in the past about 
> "technical"
> validation, with basically two camps emerging... the "so what" camp, 
> which
> believes that as long as it "works" it works; that well formed, valid 
> HTML
> documents aren't that important as long as what hits the browser is
> accessible to the end user.  The other camp (of which I am unabashedly 
> a
> member) states that you must get the fundamentals right first, and that
> includes authoring the mark-up language correctly and to the declared
> specification.
>
> For any large entity to function properly, it must be based upon 
> standards.
> If you want to build a house in today's modern society, you must use
> properly engineered, standards based blueprints.  This is so that not 
> only
> will your house "stand the test of time" but will also ensure that the
> "neighbourhood" will also survive intact and be robust, usable and 
> safe now
> and into the future.  Now you don't actually need blueprints and 
> engineers
> to build a house and there are undoubtedly numerous houses out there 
> that
> were just "built", but in the larger picture, without standards and
> compliance to them you run the risk of ending up with a shanty town.
>
> So too with "the web".  As a medium, an entity, a "neighbourhood" we 
> are
> still in the early days and years of it's evolution... it's still very 
> much
> a shanty town.  But if the collective "we" that are the ones who are
> building and maintaining this medium don't lead the way and start to 
> take
> standards seriously then we are doomed to a life of shanty towns.  And 
> while
> there will always be those who believe they can just "bang something
> together" and throw it up on the web, it will look and react like 
> something
> cobbled together, and will lack credibility... how often do you take a
> home-made page seriously?  So there is a credibility issue at stake 
> over the
> long run too.  Code validation is pretty simple... it's black and 
> white,
> right or wrong.  The on-line validators will pick out the mistakes, 
> almost
> surgically, and tell the developer where those mistakes are (line and
> character numbers), so that the developer can go back and fix the 
> error.
> There is very little rocket science or alchemy here... it's a straight
> forward process which anyone can do regardless of their "design 
> talents" or
> skills.  Why more institutions and organizations don't insist upon this
> basic compliance is still beyond me.
>
> Phil started out by asking if this was acceptable.  Phil - no, IMHO it 
> is
> not.
>
> JF
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
>> Behalf Of Lauke PH
>> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 4:10 AM
>> To: phil potter; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>> Subject: RE: 2 HTML documents in one
>>
>>
>>
>> Hmmm...I may be wrong, but...that is a malformed html document if
>> I ever saw one. I think the validator does not flag up the issue
>> of the "double html" simply because it's not programmed to pick
>> up such gross inconsistencies. If one HTML block was nested
>> inside another one, then it would probably throw an error.
>> I suspect the origin of this page originally lies in a frameset
>> with a top navigation bar and main content frame, which have been
>> kludged together to form a single page. The fact that browsers
>> seem to display it ok-ish (even lynx seems accommodating enough,
>> in that respect) does not detract from the fact that, as far as I
>> can tell, it's not legal code.
>> Going beyond the "double html" issue and looking at the
>> individual codes, the site is, unfortunately, far from
>> accessible. I haven't spent much time on it, but a simple look at
>> it in lynx (with the inordinate ammount of [spacer] graphics
>> lacking any sort of ALT attribute) would indicate that it will
>> need a lot of work before it meets accessibility standards.
>>
>> Patrick
>> ________________________________
>> Patrick H. Lauke
>> WWW Editor
>> External Relations Division
>> Faraday House
>> University of Salford
>> Greater Manchester
>> M5 4WT
>>
>> Tel: +44 (0) 161 295 4779
>>
>> e-mail: webmaster@salford.ac.uk
>> www.salford.ac.uk
>>
>> A GREATER MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: phil potter [mailto:p.potter@chester.ac.uk]
>> Sent: 03 April 2003 09:03
>> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>> Cc: phil potter
>> Subject: 2 HTML documents in one
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I've been looking at this Web site for sometime and wondering about 
>> its
>> validity, both from a coding point-of-view, and also from an
>> accessibility one too. If you look at the source code there are
>> actually 2 HTML documents on the same page - I've never seen this done
>> anywhere else and was wondering if it is acceptable or not. The
>> technique is actually utilised quite frequently across many of our
>> colleges web pages. It doesn't validate, but not for the reasons I
>> would have expected.
>>
>> http://www.chester.ac.uk/performingarts/
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> Phil
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

Received on Thursday, 3 April 2003 09:28:52 UTC