[VE][79] New Error Message Suggestion

I have allocated a page as HTML 4.01 Transitional, and I am curious as to 
why the only errors The Validator filters from the source code are 
pertaining to the nature of the <p> tags, which I felt as though were 
dutifully closed with </p>, in keeping with my thoughts regarding the 
Standard. However, the SGML parser dictates that the tags are "unopened". I 
thought this was compliant--in fact, necessary--future-proof practice; was I 
mistaken in this case?

I feel that I perhaps needn't bother to omit the closing tags, as they are 
of course a good idea to include... So I will keep them regardless, I think. 
I would up the DOCTYPE to the Strict DTD; but that results in numerous error 
reports and as of yet, I am rather unwilling to tackle the horde of "illegal 
attributes" and unrecognised entities (well, okay, not so much of the 
latter) which prevail.

Or, perhaps throwing open the gauntlet here, I don't know, but does the 
presence of a <hr /> entity within such a <p> container effectively negate 
the usage of a closing </p> tag? I somewhat doubt this; but it was the only 
alternative I could think of...

Another of my grievances, but with regards to the XHTML hosts this time: 
*Why* does the engine parse URLs??? It is really annoying and I find it 
rather trivial that characters such as ampersands have to be escaped in the 
*source code*--since when did HTML special entity characters become involved 
with the content of href attributes, for example--excluding the indirect 
nature of querysting value GET submissals (which I think should only be 
actually parsed by the *intended destination* of the URL; i.e. the action 
script)??? It makes it an annoying factor when dealing with serverside 
scripts etc--I am curious as to why the nature of the parser, or its 
maintainers and developers, does not allow for such href URL attributes to 
be exempt from such entity parsing; and for them to be treated as exact 
strings dormant at the parse-time of the referring page from whence they are 
called, rather than, seemedly, the *rest* of the source code.

Furthermore, even if I *was* to use such special entities, I always adhere 
to the convention of terminating them with a semicolon (e.g. &amp;). Am I 
mistaken here? Is it not, in fact, a *dictation* of the Standard by now, 
that this must be done? Then why is there an annoying measure which 
backwardly dictates that "anything immediately following an ampersand in 
HTML has the potential to be confused with a special character 
entity"--when, in fact, it surely should only be true if, and when, there is 
a semicolon at the end? I do not understand this... Could it be due to the 
read-order of the engine itself? Even so, I do not know why it should 
produce an error. Is it that, once an ampersand is found, and the characters 
to the right of it are not acknowledged to be such character references, it 
results in a "hiccup" even though a semicolon may not be present at all?

I hope you are able to provide some enlightenment in a response to this 
email; and I apologise for any threads of a discourteous nature which may 
have somehow managed to weave themselves into my writing...

-Marc Kirkwood.

~ What may seem as compensation for the difficulties of a person may 
inevitably be seen as patronisation to them.

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Received on Sunday, 6 June 2004 17:58:30 UTC