Re: possible validator bug - '>' not requred to close tag

Olivier Thereaux <ot@w3.org> wrote:

>error explanations : the explanations are good, already

Yes, many thanks to Scot Bigham for allowing us to use them (as well as
most of the rest of the documentation)!

But the error explanations need to be brought up to date. They currently
reflect partly a cirka pre-HTML 3.2 world.


>>Political answer - because it is technically legal, the validator must
>>allow it.  The decision is for the HTML working group, not for the
>>validator team to make.
>
>Nice set of answers. The current answer is much shorter. We could add
>your explanations to the FAQ (except maybe the political one <grin />).

Not at all. We should make very clear that these are not rules the
Validator has invented, but an actual constraint imposed on us by the
standard and that only the HTML WG has the authority to change it.

(That's not to say, of course, that we can't take Nick and Liam's lead
 in this too and add an option to give warnings about these things.)


Matt wrote:

>Is this one of those odd "HTML comes from SGML and SGML has this
>affordance for strange short-hand notation" cases? ...in which case we
>might have perfectly valid (but unorthodox) HTML and a common browser
>bug?

Yes, and a very good example of the SHOTTAGS mess it is too. Thanks for the
great example Matt! :-)



-- 
If you believe that will stop spammers, you're sadly misled. Rusty hooks,
rectally administered fuel oil enemas, and the gutting of their machines,
*that* stops spammers!                                         -- Saundo

Received on Thursday, 5 December 2002 23:19:28 UTC