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On 2008-03-22, Harlan Messinger <> wrote:
> Ben C wrote:
>> On 2008-03-22, Harlan Messinger <> wrote:
>>> Ben C wrote:
>>>> On 2008-03-21, Harlan Messinger <> wrote:
>> [...]
>>>>> Does it no longer care if you stick TRs directly inside TDs so that it
>>>>> no longer knows what the table's structure is and can no longer render
>>>>> it
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> CSS rules define how to render something that's display: table-row
>>>> directly inside something that's display: table-cell. There's no problem
>>>> there.
>>> I'm not talking about CSS, I'm talking about HTML. You could make the
>>> same CSS-based excuse for having <TD><TR>...</TR></TD> in your HTML
>>> markup.
>>
>> No, because if you put that in your HTML markup that's not what you will
>> get in your DOM tree (in Firefox etc. or by HTML5 suggestions).
>
> You're still missing the point. You are treating validity as having no
> purpose other than to slip by the thing in your browser that insists on
> validity.

Correct, that is just what I'm doing!

> If that were true, fine--except then there wouldn't be any
> point in the browser insisting on validity in the first place.

They don't insist on validity or need it for rendering. But for
historical reasons they move things around if the markup is invalid. To
stop that happening (because it's annoying and unpredictable) is the
biggest reason for most authors to insist on validity, although not the
only one.

I suspect that earlier generations of browsers that were not CSS based
_did_ need some degree of validity in order to render pages and so
that's why they particularly patch up invalid TABLE/TR/TD markup.