[WEB4LIB] Re: DOCTYPE declaration for invalid page

[Tony Barry]

At 12:16 PM -0800 1/11/2000, Eric Hellman wrote:
>
>In practice, web browser software is very tolerant of HTML syntax 
>errors, and this one will almost never give you a problem because it 
>is the most common syntax error on the web. (unless you make a form 
>with an input named "amp"!)

This is one of the reasons why browser software is large and buggy. 
It has to deal with poorly written pages. It is also a reason why new 
players have difficulty entering the browser market.

>And to answer your question, a doctype declaration won't hurt 
>anyone, unless maybe it's an XML doctype. leaving out the doctype 
>declaration doesn't make the bare ampersands any less invalid.

At the world shifts to xml, or at least xhtml, bad code will become 
unacceptable and DOCTYPE statements will become essential.

Start using them now.

Tony
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On Aboriginal Policy
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