Quoting Alexey Feldgendler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
I wonder why alt is a required attribute for IMG in HTML while an
empty value is allowed.
Because an empty value means that there is no alternate text and no
attribute at
all means that alternate text is missing. (Which is clearly not what
you want.)
The same could be said about title="", for example:
"An empty value means that there is no title, and no attribute at all
means that the title is missing." But HTML doesn't declare the title
attribute as required.
That is because the "title" attribute is not important for the element its
_contents_. Without the "alt" attribute <img> becomes meaningless for devices
(and people) who can not interpreted images. Now I guess that in some way no
"alt" could have been designed to mean that there is no alternative content,
but that's not how it is. I believe UAs are free to make up alternate content
in such situations. By for example trying to get information from the file
name...
--
Anne van Kesteren
<http://annevankesteren.nl/>
