- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 02:51:28 +0000 (UTC)
- To: Jon Ribbens <jon+www-validator@unequivocal.co.uk>
- Cc: www-validator@w3.org
On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Jon Ribbens wrote: > > I must admit I don't entirely get this. Why does the word "valid" have > such a strange meaning when applied to HTML? In any normal situation, > data which did not conform to the text of a specification would be > considered "invalid". For some reason, with HTML data can be wrong but > "valid". Surely in such an example as above it should be described as > "valid SGML" but "invalid HTML"? If not, why not? Historical reasons. To satisfy the "validity" pedants, I'd recommend using the word "conformant" instead. So a document can be "valid" but non-conformant at the same time, because validity is a (pretty arbitrary) subset of conformance. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Monday, 22 November 2004 02:51:31 UTC