Re: 30apr00 nested <CODE>

"Richard A. O'Keefe" <ok@atlas.otago.ac.nz> wrote:
>gjames@pop.war-of-the-worlds.org (Unverified) wrote:

Please use the address I provide in the From header for attribution and not
the one in the X-Sender header.  It is valid and does reach me.  Also, I do
not need a carbon copy of replies sent to the list.  I am subscribed to the
list and don't appreciate getting two copies.  (I go to the trouble to not
send them myself even when my mailer prefers to do so, so I know from
experience that it isn't much to expect of others to do the same.)

>>You can argue that it's still perfectly valid, but if Tidy
>>became paranoid and avoided making any changes to valid markup,
>>next you'll want it to leave certain invalid markup alone
>>because the browsers still do what you mean (already dealt with
>>such a request), and eventually you'll end up with Tidy doing
>>absolutely nothing to anything.  Once that happens Tidy ends up
>>being just a glorified cat.

>This is a "slippery slope" argument.  Such arguments can be valid, but
>there is a huge difference between syntactically legal HTML and
>syntactically illegal argument, making the claim "next you'll want it
>to leave certain invalid markup alone" unwarranted.

Less than a month ago, Michael Fitz wanted Tidy to leave his
<A><DT><DD></A> and his <A><P><P></A> alone.  Check the list archive,
subject "Bug tydiing <A HREF...></A>".

>In this case, we are talking about a construction which is not just
>legal but *harmless*.

How harmless is
<B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B><B>Now
THAT's what I call making a bold
statement!</B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B></B>
?  Just because there's a chance there is a stylesheet rule selecting on
bold text nested 208 levels deep doesn't mean it's a GOOD rule.  There are
better selectors to use than that, whether it is 208 levels deep or just 2
levels deep.  I'd recommend using SPAN which is a truly presentationally
neutral tag which would not be reduced and adjusting one's stylesheet
selectors accordingly.

As such, I am completely in favor of reducing redundant nesting of
presentational HTML tags.  If there's a class or id attribute applied to
some, I can see it being coerced (as Tidy calls it) to a SPAN (which will
alert the user to adjust the stylesheet accordingly), but I've also seen
software that generates useless id attributes on every tag (NetObjects
Fusion) and would like the option to ignore them.

If there is to be installed a switch on the reduction of redundantly nested
tags, it is my opinion that it should default to the ON position with the
note that there are better selectors to use than child-of-itself.  Perhaps
one of the next enhancements in stylesheet parsing should be to warn
against such selectors on %fontstyle and %phrase markup, excluding BIG and
SMALL which do have a cumulative effect.

Received on Monday, 26 June 2000 02:31:22 UTC