On 2009-07-23 15:32, Kornel wrote:
On 23 Jul 2009, at 13:35, Keryx Web wrote:
I'd say it is safe to say that using quotation marks for attribute
values, always, except perhaps for collapsed, boolean attributes, has
been regarded as best practice for a long time now. Speaking as an
instructor for newbies, enforcing quotation marks has proven its value
countless of times for me and my students.
It's not a clear benefit. Unpaired quotation marks can also be a
*source* of errors, which wouldn't happen without them:
Having dealt with other peoples code a lot (being a teacher) I'd say
that problem is exceptionally rare and very easy to spot, put in
contrast with the ones arising from not using quotation marks. The
proportion is like 100 to 1.
Ergo: In real life the benefit is very clear.
As for conformance criteria only being about unambiguous parsing: If
that is the case we do not need them at all any more, since HTML 5
defines how to handle badly written markup.
Just like validation in HTML 4 in reality is more of a benefit to the
developer than the browser, since 99% of all errors actually are benign,
so conformance criteria in HTML 5 is supposed to primarily help web
developers - and authoring tool developers.
And speaking directly to Ian H, a few years ago you said on this list
that you'd love for the spec to help teachers as much as possible
(within the limits of being a spec). My suggested example markup changes
is definitely such a help.
--
Keryx Web (Lars Gunther)
http://keryx.se/
http://twitter.com/itpastorn/
http://itpastorn.blogspot.com/
