Re: [PLUG] PLUG Website Maintenence

[Jason <jason@nocks.com>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Friday 11 October 2002 16H:37, Paul wrote:
> >My understanding was that you either need an end tag or end within the
> > tag. For example, both of the following are valid:
> >
> ><hr></hr>
> ><hr/>
>
> One very small detail is that you need a space before the slash.  <hr />

I thought this was done more to appease some browsers than for XML or XHTML 
compliance, but I was probably wrong there. I see a remarkably similar 
example in an older XML in a Nutshell edition. It doesn't look like there was 
a space in the example either.

>
> Using either /> or </link> works as far as XHTML is concerned, but HTML
> won't accept it.  HTML prohibits end tags in link and meta tags.  There
> might be a work-around, but the closing tags are not it.

What I have seen is inserting an optional attribute and setting it to 
something like a value of "empty" to try to appease some browsers (stop them 
from choking on the "/>"). I don't know if this helps with any HTML 
validators or not.

>
> >XHTML is probably still one of the biggest current non-standards where
> > actual browser implementations are concerned. Haven't done any XHTML
> > validation, though.
>
> Validating against XHTML is nice.  There are only a few minor
> differences compared to the HTML validator.  Here's a short list.
>
> All tags are case sensitive and must be typed in lower case.
>
> Values need to have quotes around them.
>
> Every opening tag needs to have a closing tag.  Even <br>  needs to be
> typed as <br></br> or <b />.
>
> Um...there's not much to it since I'm talking about "Transitional"
> XHTML.  Validating against strict HTML or XHTML is almost imposible for
> me because I don't want to accept the restrictions.  For example, I
> don't always want to mess with Cascading Style Sheets just to change
> font size or color.  The technology behind Web pages is becoming more
> powerful and flexible, but a the same time more difficult and stongly
> typed.  Better and worse.

I can see how you might think this makes things more difficult when writing 
pages yourself. I think that this feeling goes away somewhat as you get used 
to putting tighter restrictions on yourself.

I see much of this more as an attempt to cleanup loose practices introduced 
often because browsers allowed pretty sloppy HTML. The main problem here was 
inconsistency. Some of this has been addressed in standardized HTML. XML and 
XHTML do go an extra step, though. And, yes, the power and flexibility of the 
tools available continues to improve in the process.

Cheers,
Jason Nocks
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE9qFgS3CryLfCgqRkRAmSlAJ9Hq+rpKZZHpcjfcpQqiwV2YzkTZgCeJH9H
L4zWcLKWDz/WAtOVnKxGmHg=
=jsQY
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

_________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group        --       http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.netisland.net/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.netisland.net/mailman/listinfo/plug