[innguest]

> That makes HTML "code" marginally easier [...] and for programs to error-check and correct.

This is a great point. It's not subjective and I'm pretty sure it's right. I hadn't thought of that. I guess there is a use for redundancy sometimes. If the point is to make the language welcoming to beginners then this decision makes sense.

I wonder, though, if they made the same mistake that the SQL people did, in devising a language with characteristics that are advantageous to some imagined target group ("non-programmers") but that ends up getting used just by programmers who then hate the training wheels.