re: minimal HTML

James (jtilton@jupiter.willamette.edu)
Fri, 7 Jan 1994 15:57:13 -0800 (PST)


On Sat, 8 Jan 1994, Bert Bos wrote:

> I'm not sure... On the one hand it might simplify writing parsers for
> HTML if no tags are omitted. On the other hand these tags are not
> really meant for people to use. They are hooks for an SGML parser or
> (in the jargon of grammar writers) "nonterminals" that do not show up
> in the final surface structure.

Not having written a parser for HTML, I'm shooting a bit in the dark
here, but it seems to me that promoting more "legitimate" HTML (w/ <HTML>
tags, et al) is a smart move. After all, that's what's in the
specification -- and while laxness is often allowed by the browsers, how
can we be sure the browsers will always be lax in the same ways? It
seems that it would be better to be anal :), and have legal HTML floating
around instead of quasi-legal HTML.

This would probably be a good job for some sort of prettifying filter for
HTML, that would take someone's "lax" code and add the appropriate extra
tags.

-et

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