Re: Validation error frequencies in Alexa top 500 front pages

On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> 
> Here are the errors with each one counted at most once per page with 
> Google excluded: 
> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/test/moz/alexa500-page-collapsed-counts-no-google.txt
> 
> > [...]
> > 0216 / 428 Attribute “cellspacing” not allowed on element “table”
> > at this point.
> > 0216 / 428 Attribute “cellpadding” not allowed on element “table”
> > at this point.
> > 0191 / 428 Attribute “border” not allowed on element “table” at
> > this point.
> > 0188 / 428 Attribute “width” not allowed on element “table” at
> > this point.
> > 0153 / 428 Attribute “valign” not allowed on element “td” at this
> > point.
> > 0153 / 428 Attribute “align” not allowed on element “td” at this
> > point.
> > 0151 / 428 Attribute “width” not allowed on element “td” at this
> > point.

There have been proposals suggesting that we allow these attributes, at 
least with their default values.

This would be equivalent to allowing /> on void elements, xmlns="" with 
the assumed values, and xml:lang="" and lang="" if they match.

However, the difference is that while those three syntax concessions help 
move between two supposedly equally acceptable styles of markup more 
easily (XML and HTML), the attributes above are really only useful for 
moving _from_ an old deprecated style (presentational markup) _to_ a style 
that doesn't use presentational markup (hence why we'd only allow the 
default values). But allowing the attributes would also allow one to more 
easily move _back_, which I think we want to discourage.

I think it would make good sense for a validator to collapse all such 
errors into one line like "This page also contains 13 deprecated 
attributes that have no effect (more...)", but I don't think it makes 
sense for us to actually make them part of the language.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'