* David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> [Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:59:04 +0100]:
2009/9/25 Roan Kattouw
<roan.kattouw(a)gmail.com>om>:
In past discussions I have noted that "tag soup" is a *feature* of
human languages, not a bug.
HTML was constructed as a computer markup language for humans.
Unfortunately, the humans in question were nuclear physicists; lesser
beings couldn't handle it.
Note how HTML5 now defines how to handle "bad" syntax, in recognition
of the fact that humans write tag soup.
Wikitext spitting errors would be a bug in wikitext, not a feature.
XML is used to store "human-produced" rich formatted text by many
standalone and web apps. XML parsers are also very strict and spitting
errors. As it's been mentioned recently, XML is really good for bots,
too, for that reason (the input is "error-free" tree).
I wonder, If the browsers can handle tag soup, most probably MediaWiki
parser can handle wikitext soup, too? Eg, instead of parsing error,
properly close the nodes. The existing wikitext of millions of articles
has to be converted by commandline upgrade script in case the wikitext
will be abandoned. Though I wonder whether it's possible to keep
wikitext editing mode for backwards compatibility by using the same
method online.
Dmitriy