Re: Toward Closure on HTML

"Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>
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Date: Thu, 7 Apr 1994 19:57:04 --100
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From: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>
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Subject: Re: Toward Closure on HTML 
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Dave, that may be correct in principle, but in real life it opens a 
rather nasty can of worms.  (Re: <p>Text -- infering or assuming  the 
missing </p> endtag)

When we get to a point where we support stylesheets (PLEASE!) it is of 
extreme importance to consider <p></p> a container.  Without this, it is 
not possible to assign stylistic attributes to a contained element.

Current practice suggests that <p> is not a container at all, it is a
logical break -- or it is considered as a container with no contents.  This
is the behavior of available browsers, as I understand them.

---------------------Example---------------------
<body>
This is text with no container. (1)
<p>
Perhaps this is text in a <p> container. (2)
<p>
Hmmm... no </p> associated with the previous <p>!  Do we assume that there 
was to be one, or do we treat <p> as a break? (3)
</body>
-------------------------------------------------

The principles behind SGML -- and by its lineage, HTML -- are to markup 
the structure of the document.  

In the previous example, what is the text associated with (1)?  It is
<body> text or <p> text?  And if we build stylesheets which allow logical
elements within the document to have their own stylistic "hints", which do
we apply to (1)? 

Inquiring minds want to know.

--  </rr>  Rob Raisch, The Internet Company