> Steinar Bang <steinarb@falch.no>:
>
> >Making browsers forgiving about HTML syntax errors, instead of giving
> >good user feedback, is probably the gravest error committed by the
> >browser writers.
>
> I think I disagree. It follows from the network pricipal of being
> liberally in what ones accepts and cautious in what one sends.
Thus, the server should not be as laissez-faire as modern
servers are about serving broken HTML.
> If casual users where made aware of every problem in the document and
> every glitch in the network that occurred while viewing, the Web might
> not be the success story it is. Not many people really care that
> much about these things.
You're right that few people care about this. That's part
of why I question your assertion that the Web is a success
story. Maybe it is in terms of making the Internet look
like a fun 'n' fancy tool for the unwashed masses, but I
hesitate to call that "success."
> Individual homepages are not necessarily the best examples to pick on
> when it comes to sloppy or abusive markup, professional people
> are sometimes even more abusive when they try to make HTML a
> publishing tool and spend all their time achieving the right look and
> forgetting that they should be providing information.
Enthusiastically agreed.