[oclug] html tools

[Rod Giffin]

On Wednesday 28 August 2002 01:08 pm, Jon Earle wrote:
> We should be writing software to conform to the needs of the user, not
> force the user to conform to the software.  This is the principle we've
> been fighting for whenever we denounce Microsoft, yes?

Well yes and no.  You don't make software conform to the needs of the user by 
applying standards in an ad-hoc fashion, and in ways that cause ambigious 
behaviours.  That serves only to confuses users, and they will gravitate to 
products that have predictable behaviours.

In HTML, you can leave a <br> tag unclosed because the DTD defines the tag as 
having no content. Similarly the <hr> tag.  However, the DTD specifies that 
the <p> tag can have body content, and therefore it should always be closed.

This ensures that browser parsers all render your paragraph as you intended 
rather than by applying error recovery routines which can leave you with 
strange and unintended results sometimes.  That runs counter to the point you 
try to make above.

Rod.