Re: Browsers and syntax errors (Was: Captions for Figures...)

Phillip M. Hallam-Baker (hallam@dxal18.cern.ch)
Fri, 10 Mar 1995 09:50:13 +0500

>Making browsers forgiving about HTML syntax errors, instead of giving
>good user feedback, is probably the gravest error committed by the
>browser writers.

Making the browsers tolerant is essential. Otherwise they would fail on all
sorts of unexpected bugs in automated scripts. Synthesising correct HTML all
the time is very tricky.

The solution is for people to use Arena which comes up with a Bad HTML flag when
is gets rubbish. This will at least ensure that the companies are keen to have
correct HTMl since it gives a bad image if their HTML is buggy. Do you think
Microsoft will want to handle the complaint from their users if their Word add
in keeps lighting up the bad HTML flag? Same for the other vendors.

Phill.