On 7/23/06, Stephen Colebourne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The concept that XML (XHTML in this case) is human readable is highly dubious, 
and has
become accepted wisdom far too easily.

Agreed, a .properties file is far more readable but that's not in
question here. Bad HTML is less readable than good HTML because the
eye is used to precompiling what's being typed.

 The first point is that it isn't 'bad' HTML, its just normal HTML. Every HTML 
tool going has to be
able to cope with this sort of layout so any tool arguments fail pretty quickly.

I don't agree - it was bad HTML in the mid 90s and it's bad HTML now.
A decade of misuse doesn't make it right.

 So it comes down to readability, which is much more of a stylistic choice. 
Personally, I strive to
avoid unecessary clutter, only including unecessary things (eg. additionl 
brackets) if I judge it
aids understanding.

+1.

 Here, the end paragraphs tell a human nothing, and the start paragraphs get in 
the way
(delaying the eye from reaching the first meaningful word).

They tell the reader it's a paragraph.

 In the end, this is about human interaction with that piece of text (in any 
editor including eclipse).
And HCI would suggest getting the eye to the most meaningful piece of 
information (the actual
text, not the tag) quickly. ie. remove the unecessary clutter.

And its not a break tag, its a paragraph tag. That really would be breaking the 
HTML model.

Again - I don't agree :)

It's a break tag. A paragraph has been a containing concept since HTML
2.0 (1995) - that's how long this has been bad HTML. <p> on its own
hasn't had a meaning since HTML 1.0 (1991->1993).

Hen

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