The closing li tags were optional in HTML, up through middle-to-late 1990s. This is no longer true for any even remotely recent version of HTML. The last several versions of HTML are XML document types, so all tags must be closed. Don't live in 1998: close your tags. | [reply] |
The closing li tags were optional in
HTML, up through middle-to-late 1990s. This is no longer true for any
even remotely recent version of HTML. The last several versions of
HTML are XML document types, so all tags must be
closed.
That is not correct. HTML and XHTML are not the same, and
every version of HTML is an application of SGML. HTML thus
allows for markup minimization when the corresponding document-type
definition (DTD) says so, and all of the HTML DTDs – going back
to the original
version – define the LI element's end
tag to be optional.
As long as Perl Monks is served up in HTML, it will be perfectly
acceptable to omit any tags the corresponding DTD says are optional.
The W3C's HTML
and XHTML Frequently Answered Questions addresses the underlying issues in
detail.
Cheers,
Tom
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HTML and XHTML are not the same, and
every version of HTML is an application of SGML
No. XHTML is eXtensible HTML. That's what it
stands for, and it was named that because that's
what it is. SGML-based versions of HTML are
very much legacy stuff at this point; they're not
extensible in the way that XML is and should
not be used going forward. update: and
when the W3C says "HTML" today, they are almost
always talking about XHTML. For instance, if
you go to the W3C website and click on "HTML
Activity Statement", everything there is about
XHTML, not HTML4.
If you find old
information that says HTML4 is current and should
still be used if XML embedding isn't needed, that
dates from the very early XHTML era, before XHTML
had fully stabilized, and it is no longer the case.
Maintaining old, pre-existing HTML4 is one thing,
but for new stuff you will do yourself a big favor
in the long run if you write it as XHTML now.
As long as Perl Monks is served up in HTML
Ok, I had somehow missed the fact that Perlmonks is
still serving out all of its pages as HTML4. Ugh.
I imagine the reason for that probably has to do
with the amount of work that would be involved with
fixing it, given the complicated implementation of
the site. Yes, if Perlmonks pages are served out
as HTML4, then it's technically okay to omit closing
tags as per the HTML4 spec,
on Perlmonks.
As a rule, however,
it's a bad habbit of which you should really try to
break yourself as soon as possible, for a wide
variety of reasons.
(I won't here go into all the reasons why XHMTL
was and is needed, but the W3C has some information
up about that. What they don't say is that XHTML is
MUCH easier to maintain than legacy HTML, as well
as easier to reliably parse.)
"In adjectives, with the addition of inflectional endings, a changeable long vowel (Qamets or Tsere) in an open, propretonic syllable will reduce to Vocal Shewa. This type of change occurs when the open, pretonic syllable of the masculine singular adjective becomes propretonic with the addition of inflectional endings."
— Pratico & Van Pelt, BBHG, p68
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That still doesn't make "<li />" tags acceptable. Quite the contrary: everything should be inside the "li" element, thus, between the "<li>" and the corresponding "</li>" tags.
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[d/l]
[select] |
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What does this have to do with Perlmonks, which is HTML4?
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The file is declared as HTML 4.0 Transitional, but if you look at the tags the site uses it uses XHTML style tags with any unpaired tag ending in a /. So it appears to me that the site attempts to be XHTML, but declairs it self as HTML4 to prevent a poorly formated post from causing a strictly compliant browser from mis-rendering the whole page.
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