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0 pointsderefr9y ago0 comments

HTML got complicated because they modified the assumptions whenever they were violated, to make the violation into a working case.

Specs grow much more slowly if, in response to such non-conforming implementations of a processing stage, they just codify the common sense, and maybe give methods for detecting the non-conforming outputs and rejecting them. XHTML is not a large spec.

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adrianratnapala9y ago

Very true. But HTML is not unique in this regard, other standards have done this too.

I picked on HTML because it is also a foundational web technology. Many of its standards setters are the same people who will influence WASM, and many of the same incentives will be at play with WASM as with HTML.

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