3 ms·

A lot of HTML tags never have a body, so it makes no sense to close them. XML has self-closing tag syntax but it wasn't always handled well by browsers. A p or

by kbolino 9mo ago

A lot of HTML tags never have a body, so it makes no sense to close them. XML has self-closing tag syntax but it wasn't always handled well by browsers. A p or li tag, at least when used and nested properly, logically ends where either the next one begins or the enclosing block ends. Closing li also creates the opportunity for nonsensical content inside of a list but not in any list item. Of course all of these corner cases are now well specified because people did close their tags sometimes.

afavour 9mo ago
> A p or li tag, at least when used and nested properly, logically ends where either the next one begins or the enclosing block ends While this is true I’ve never liked it. blahblah2 Implies a closing in the middle. But blahblah2 Does not. Obviously with the knowledge of the difference between what span and p represent I understand why but in terms of pure markup it’s always left a bad taste in my mouth. I’ll always close tags whenever relevant even if it’s not necessary.
- kbolino 9mo ago
 This interpretation of the p element implies that it contains a paragraph. But HTML is first and foremost a document format, and one could just as logically conclude that the p element simply starts a new paragraph. Under the latter interpretation, would never exist any more than </hr> or </img>. In practice, modern HTML splits the difference with rigorous and well defined but not necessarily intuitive semantics.
Pxtl 9mo ago
> XML has self-closing tag syntax but it wasn't always handled well by browsers. So we'll add another syntax for browsers to handle. https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- kbolino 9mo ago
  I was going to respond that HTML was the original syntax and XML the usurper, but a comment in another thread casts some doubt on that version of events: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46576844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46576844

by kbolino 9mo ago

afavour 9mo ago

> A p or li tag, at least when used and nested properly, logically ends where either the next one begins or the enclosing block ends While this is true I’ve never liked it. blahblah2 Implies a closing in the middle. But blahblah2 Does not. Obviously with the knowledge of the difference between what span and p represent I understand why but in terms of pure markup it’s always left a bad taste in my mouth. I’ll always close tags whenever relevant even if it’s not necessary.

kbolino 9mo ago
This interpretation of the p element implies that it contains a paragraph. But HTML is first and foremost a document format, and one could just as logically conclude that the p element simply starts a new paragraph. Under the latter interpretation, would never exist any more than </hr> or </img>. In practice, modern HTML splits the difference with rigorous and well defined but not necessarily intuitive semantics.

Pxtl 9mo ago

> XML has self-closing tag syntax but it wasn't always handled well by browsers. So we'll add another syntax for browsers to handle. https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
kbolino 9mo ago
I was going to respond that HTML was the original syntax and XML the usurper, but a comment in another thread casts some doubt on that version of events: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46576844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46576844