[whatwg] Allow trailing slash in always-empty HTML5 elements?

Elliotte Harold wrote:
> Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> 
>> Because the fact is that when authors try to use XHTML as text/html, 
>> they inevitibly fail to do so properly.  It takes considerable 
>> knowledge and skill to be aware of and handle all issues ranging from 
>> parsing, character encodings to scripts and stylesheets.
> 
> All it really takes is minimal tool support. If systems like WordPress 
> and DreamWeaver that hide the HTML start generating well-formed HTML, 
> that's half the battle right there.

I think the recent discussion about WordPress proved that isn't going to 
happen any time soon.

> The other half could be addressed by one little box in the corner of 
> Firefox's status bar that's a smiley face if the page is valid, and a 
> frown if it isn't.

Developers already have the option to install extensions for that.

http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/
http://relaxed.sourceforge.net/firefox-plugin.html

> Most hand authors including myself don't always achieve well-formedness 
> because nothing pricks us if we don't.

It does when you use the correct MIME type!

> Even the tiniest annoyance from a bad page, would cause us to check the 
> error logs and fix the problems.

The Yellow Screen of Death is about as annoying as you can get.  I 
really don't understand how you can go on about the benefits of XML 
because it requires well-formedness, but then turn around and say XML 
can be served as text/html which just makes all your arguments null and 
void.

> Fixing a page to be well-formed and even valid XHTML is not hard, and 
> well within the abilities of most people hand authoring HTML.

Hmmm.  You obviously haven't seen a lot of the rubbish that many people, 
including those that hand code, actually produce.  Perhaps you keep 
forgetting that people like us who can easily produce well-formed and 
valid markup are in the minority.

> The problem is when we don't realize we have a problem in the first place. 

The problem is that you're using the wrong MIME type.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

Received on Saturday, 2 December 2006 09:21:09 UTC