P as a container [Was: CENTER element [Was: Netscape & New HTML] ]

Daniel W. Connolly (connolly@hal.com)
Thu, 27 Oct 1994 11:28:26 -0500

In message <9410251440.ZM8395@strumpet.mcom.com>, "Lou Montulli" writes:
>On Oct 25, 3:13pm, Tony Sanders wrote:
>> Subject: Re: CENTER element [Was: Netscape & New HTML]
>> > > and <P ALIGN=CENTER> makes little sense
>> > > given that (a) standard practice is that <P> is end of paragraph, not
>> > > a container,
>> My, how quickly history is rewritten; <P> has never marked the end of a
>> paragraph. The rule was that <P>'s and </P>'s should be implied where
>> they are obvious.
>
>That's not true. The original CERN spec, which BTW never included
>a DTD, specified <p> as a paragraph separator and never had a </p>.

True.

>Trying to make <p> into a container now IS rewritting history and
>breaks many current implementations,

Could you give some evidence to support this? My test data (~100
test cases culled from around the net ... see

http://www.hal.com/%7Econnolly/html-test/README.html

along with hundereds of folks using the validation service and not
complaining) indicates that the current specification is consistent
with existing documents, practices, and implementations.

The P container/separator issue was debated at length in the HTML
Working group (which is open to all interested parties.) The list is
archived. There is even an edited collection of pointers on this
topic:

"HTML 2.0 Spec Review Topics"
http://www.hal.com/%7Econnolly/html-spec/notes/ReviewTopics.html

> and in my opionion is a very
>bad idea.

Your opinion, and any evidence to back it up, would have been welcome
on the html-wg mailing list back when this issue was being debated.

Spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about the interoperability
aspects of the HTML 2.0 specification at this point is pretty much
inexcusable, given the openness of the working group and the
availability of the archives.

> We should try and write the spec to coexist peacefully
>with existing practice rather than breaking everything and forceing
>rewrites.

"We"... hmmm. Mosaic communications corp. was noticeably absent
from the discussions on html-wg. Despite this, I believe the
HTML 2.0 spec does coexist with existing practice.

Evidence to the contrary is welcome.

Daniel W. Connolly "We believe in the interconnectedness of all things"
Software Engineer, Hal Software Systems, OLIAS project (512) 834-9962 x5010
<connolly@hal.com> http://www.hal.com/%7Econnolly