Re: Suppressed content in HEAD: myth or reality?

Eric Bina (ebina@netscape.com)
Wed, 3 May 95 23:42:16 EDT

> In some circles, the conventional wisdom is "if you find data
> characters anywhere in the <HEAD> element, don't display them in the
> same text window where you show the <body> stuff."
>
> This has been in some versions of the HTML specs for a long time.
>
> I think Mosaic 2.5beta implemented it.
>
> Are folks willing to count on this convention, even though there are a
> lot of browsers out there that don't abide by it? (e.g Mosaic 2.4).

Any good suggestions on what to do when the user opens a <HEAD> and forgets to
close it? At what point should we assume the closure of the <HEAD>? We can't
do it at the first thing that the browser thinks shouldn't be there, because
in that case, a browser that didn't understand <STYLE>data</STYLE> would
assume closure of the HEAD as soon as it saw "data". I suppose we can assume
it at the <BODY>, but we still leave the opportunity for a doc with <HEAD>,
not </HEAD> and no <BODY> which would just disappear into limbo inside the
browser. It sure worries me.

Eric