The most hardcore HTML geek post ever

[mmcirvin]

I bet you never heard of these features of HTML. Yes, in every version of HTML up to 4.01,

<UL>
     <LI>foo
     <>bar
     <>baz</>
</>

was valid syntax accepted by the W3C's validator!

Don't bother using these tricks. As far as I know, no browser has ever supported all of them (some support one or two), and one of the major purposes of XHTML was to remove them all from the markup specification by switching from SGML to XML as a basis.

My initial introduction to these murky SGML-spawned corners of the language was an old, deadpan-funny rant called "The Dark Side of the HTML", but unfortunately it seems to have gone off to 404-land long ago.

Update: Here it is in Google's cache. I should stress that, given improvements in the standards situation over the past several years, the author's practical conclusions are no longer as applicable as they were.