Re: Some complaints about HTML 4.0

Liam Quinn wrote:
> So would you do away with the HTML 4.0 draft's comment concerning
empty 
> paragraphs:
> 
> | Empty P elements are bad form and should be ignored by the
renderer.
> (http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-html40/struct/text.html)

The more I think about it, the more I question why any spec should be
concerned with 'good form'. Why not consider <P></P> or <P><P> or
<P></some_enclosing_block_element> as an empty <P>element, with margins
and linespacing still intact?

This won't be specified by accident. Why prohibit it for the sake of
'good form'?

If prohibition is called for, how about prohibiting 'obscene markup'
that offends 'contemporary standards'?

HTML 4.0 seems to be recognizing stylesheets as the preferred
presentational markup, and that's wonderful. But I wonder how IMG fits
into the above reference to Paragraphs. IMG can be either block or
inline depending on context, can't it? So how should this be rendered:

  <P>Here's an image <IMG SRC=x>
  <P>In the previous paragraph we saw an x-rated image.

Should the image follow, inline, the text of the first paragraph, or
should it be considered a block element? 

David Perrell

Received on Sunday, 13 July 1997 03:33:33 UTC