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eternal_neophyte comments on The horrifying importance of domain knowledge - Less Wrong Discussion
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A lot of programmers believe they can parse HTML at all.
Go read the official W3C parser algorithm, I'll wait. First thing you'll notice is that there is no formal grammar - the spec is of the actual parser state machine. Then you notice each past-and-present HTML version has its own parser algorithm spec, and there is no official documentation on the differences between them, never mind rationale. Then you realize that HTML5 is now a "living spec", so the parser algorithm at that link occasionally changes, and past versions and changelogs are deliberately not published...
HTML is a parseable format like PHP is a programming language. There is no spec, there is only whatever bugs and quirks a particular browser version happens to contain.
(Oh, you thought browsers actually follow any of those published W3C specs? HAHAHAHAHA sob.)
HTML is indeed a turd of a standard.