[hhsnopek]

"I can't be bothered to remember which tags are self-closing, which tags need explicit closing tags which can't be combined into the opening tag, etc"

You're right lets not bother ourselves with this small things, cause === and == do the exact same comparison in Javascript and all browsers are exact replicates when implementing html, css and javascript.

Beyond all the sarcasm, in reality, web programming is a hassle. But other programming languages and markups have their quirks as well. I'm glad you found a solution, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't look at the fine details of a specification.

[Arnavion]

>cause === and == do the exact same comparison in Javascript

I also don't bother remembering how == works. I use === everywhere. The reason is the same - lower cognitive overhead.

>all browsers are exact replicates when implementing html, css and javascript

The browsers I care about all parse XML correctly.

>I'm glad you found a solution, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't look at the fine details of a specification.

I'm only talking about myself, yes. I only make websites for my personal projects. I'm certainly not a web dev by profession or even by hobby.

[luhn]

I don't understand your argument. Yes, web programming has lots of warts and subtle behaviors and inconsistencies. So shouldn't we jump on a chance to remove a small part of that from our day-to-day development? OP isn't advocating ignorance of the spec, just a way not to need to reason with it as often.

[hhsnopek]

No argument, just a comment that displays my disapproval of not fully complying with the spec before blaming it.

[MaulingMonkey]

How is anyone not complying with the spec by not micro-optimizing away legal-but-redundant tags?