Re: title

\\ For better understanding, I want to argue about something with others
\\ who may be able to shed some light on the subject...
\\ 
\\ HTML is always stating that <TITLE> is required.  I honestly see no
\\ reason why, it doesn't always have a meaningful purpose, but the main
\\ arguement is that HTML also describes that <HTML> and <HEAD> are not
\\ required...  If I take this right though, a proper implementation must
\\ only accept <TITLE> inside <HEAD> and then must only accept <HEAD>
\\ inside <HTML>...  what is it that allows <TITLE> to be a requirement
\\ but the others not?

The others (HEAD and HTML) can be inferred from context. In the parser I
have put together, if TITLE (or BASE or LINK or STYLE) is seen, HEAD and
HTML are automatically inserted. Also, HEAD is closed as soon as a non-head
element (or </HEAD>) is encountered. So, making HEAD optional does not
cause problems.

However, removing the necessity of TITLE robs the document of a relatively
important content marker. HEAD by itself has no content, it's a grouping
mechanism for non-displayable HTML. That includes TITLE. BODY here is
analogous to HEAD, but is displayable. The groupings can be inferred, but
the content of the document cannot. That is the best line of reasoning I
can come up with right now.

\\  Does the use of <TITLE> also bring in the
\\ assumption of the <HEAD> and <HTML> tags?  If so, would it be incorrect
\\ to place <TITLE> at the end of a document?  I do not see such a
\\ requirement made in the HTML specification...  Is it this same kind of
\\ assumptions that make MSIE decode TXT files as <HTML> files when they
\\ include HTML tags? (this is not fully tested, but rename an HTML file
\\ to TXT and send it to MSIE with a content type of text/plain and MSIE
\\ will instead render the HTML...

MSIE then is not paying attention to mime types, a major bug. Even if a
document has a .html extension, if it is delivered with mime-type
text/plain, it should be rendered as plain text, not HTML.

Sunil

Received on Sunday, 22 September 1996 17:45:54 UTC