html5 optional tags

Destry · 2016-09-21 16:21:36

I’ve not really paid attention to optional tags before until looking at this code example.

Bloke · 2016-09-21 19:58:15

Never knew that was possible. Learn something new every day, thanks. I still kinda prefer matching opening and closing pairs, though. It just feels… right somehow.

The rest of that doc has some sensible advice too, with the exception of the first bit about protocol which was originally thought to be a good idea and is now considered an anti-pattern.

michaelkpate · 2016-09-21 21:11:42

Omit optional tags (optional).

This seems sort of recursive to me. :)

maverick · 2016-09-21 21:22:06

Bloke wrote #301663:

I still kinda prefer matching opening and closing pairs, though. It just feels…

+1

colak · 2016-09-22 05:32:23

The example here explains:

This is why the tag can only be removed if it is not followed by a comment: removing the tag when there is a comment there changes the document’s resulting parse tree. Of course, if the position of the comment does not matter, then the tag can be omitted, as if the comment had been moved to before the start tag in the first place.

but i do agree that opening and closing pairs is much clearer.

gaekwad · 2016-09-22 09:44:20

Don’t assume other (non-Google/Alphabet) search engines parse this stuff in the same way. I’m all for bit saving, but if Bing blows up when it can’t parse a <head> properly, then I’ll stick to the old way for now.

Also, there’re no HTML5 DTDs, which is a bit sad.

Algaris · 2016-09-22 13:35:44

Interesting. Although I like the idea of closing pairs for some tags I do like the idea of being able to do this:

<table>
 <caption>37547 TEE Electric Powered Rail Car Train Functions (Abbreviated)
 <colgroup><col><col><col>
 <thead>
  <tr> <th>Function                              <th>Control Unit     <th>Central Station
 <tbody>
  <tr> <td>Headlights                            <td>✔                <td>✔
  <tr> <td>Interior Lights                       <td>✔                <td>✔
  <tr> <td>Electric locomotive operating sounds  <td>✔                <td>✔
  <tr> <td>Engineer's cab lighting               <td>                 <td>✔
  <tr> <td>Station Announcements - Swiss         <td>                 <td>✔
</table>

Makes HTML tables much easier to understand.

michaelkpate · 2016-09-22 13:48:09

My first experience with HTML was reading “How to learn HTML in 24 Hours” or something like that back in 1995. The rules were really less strict back then.

But I spent so long in the XHTML mindset that I am never going to think leaving tags unclosed is a great idea.

The phrase “Be strict in what you send, but generous in what you receive” continues to apply. If your team is comfortable with that style of markup and the trade-offs then it may be acceptable. If your team prefers clean markup and will be visually inspecting markup most of the time, it is preferable to close tags even when not strictly necessary. – To Close or Not To Close Tags in HTML5

etc · 2016-09-22 14:10:52

Some XML parsers (e.g. the one used in etc_query) might dislike it, fwiw.

Destry · 2016-09-23 11:36:21

gaekwad wrote #301667:

Don’t assume other (non-Google/Alphabet) search engines parse this stuff in the same way. I’m all for bit saving, but if Bing blows up when it can’t parse a <head> properly, then I’ll stick to the old way for now.

That’s what I was wondering too, but the referred code example actually says in red letters — not recommended — for the normal way of doing it. Plus it says to either go All-in! with cutting every optional tag, or not at all. Google hype, of course.

All-in-all it seems like a bunch of silly boolsheet to be needlessly confused with. I’d rather learn the more interesting things coming up with CSS and variable fonts.

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#1 2016-09-21 16:21:36