Re: Void elements in HTML (Was: ZIP-based packages and URI references into them ODF proposal)

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 4:07 AM, Robert J Burns <rob@robburns.com> wrote:
> Hi Jonas and Phillip,
>
> On Dec 30, 2008, at 7:08 PM, Jonas Sicking wrote:
>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 1:57 AM, Philip Taylor <pjt47@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>> Jonas Sicking wrote:
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> I actually think it would be great to support the ending-slash syntax
>>>> for all elements in HTML5. I have several times ended up writing
>>>> things like <div id=foo></div>, and having it consistently supported
>>>> in both HTML mode and foreign content mode would actually reduce the
>>>> differences between them which I think is a great thing.
>>>>
>>>> I have heard of some real world pages that would break if the empty
>>>> element syntax was supported everywhere, however I wonder if it's many
>>>> enough that we need to adjust HTML to accommodate them.
>>>
>>> There's millions - a quick search through some random pages gives lots of
>>> examples of <a ... />...</a>, which would clearly break, like:
>>>
>>> http://www.haliburtonrealestate.on.ca/ -- <li><a href="http://www.mls.ca"
>>> target="_blank" title="Multiple Listing Service" />MLS</a>
>>>
>>> http://www.ccitula.ru/ -- <a href="pages/virtv.htm"/> <img
>>> src=http://www.ruschamber.net/banner/VEru158x50.jpg border=0></a>
>>>
>>> http://takasago.shop-pro.jp/ -- <a href="?pid=1912944" /><img
>>> src="http://img05.shop-pro.jp/PA01015/854/product/1912944_th.jpg"
>>> class="border" /></a>
>>>
>>> http://www.alternativegreetingcards.com/ -- <a href="products.asp?id=57"
>>> class="submenu" />Wizard of Oz</a>
>>
>> Ugh, that sucks (i'd be very interested to know how you found this data).
>>
>> Maybe an alternative "fix" would be to allow the empty-element syntax
>> to be supported on all unknown elements. This would allow an author to
>> write "<killswitch />" to make down-level implementations create the
>> same DOM as implementations that know that <killswitch> is a void
>> element. Once enough browsers support the <killswitch> elements that
>> the author doesn't care about down-level support the ending '/' can be
>> dropped.
>
>
> Certainly we can find examples. I just don't think the examples provide any
> clear evidence that we shouldn't go ahead an specify the new parsing anyway.
> Certainly there will be some obscure sites that break, but they will be
> easily fixed as well. This is an issue so obscure and rare as to not really
> apply to the design principles of the WG. Once we're talking about under
> 0.01 of a percent of the web, I don't think we should apply a design
> principle in such a draconian way.

How do you know this is 'obscure and rare'? Where do you get the
information that this appears in less than 0.01 percent of the web?

/ Jonas

Received on Wednesday, 31 December 2008 03:43:31 UTC