[Stormcaller]

<font>, I don't think there's an excuse. we know for sure that it is not out of incompetence but it was probably easier to write at the time and nobody bothered to fix it because it doesn't really matter.

For the <center>, it is probably not the case here as this is just a text based site but sometimes it is easier to center an image by that tag when your site is partitioned in many margins it is not as easy to center some stuff, or you might just prefer to add a tag.

I also like <br>, it really makes more sense to me and easier to write. It doesn't really break anything either.

I wonder how many there are, like me, think that <center> and <br> are actually really nice things to have?

[SamReidHughes]

There's nothing wrong with font tags on HN. You might not realize that the pages served on this site are machine-generated!

[Stormcaller]

I agree. Its just they could add a class to css, and instead of setting font tag to each element, just add the class. But of course, since they are generated in a loop anyway, there's no practical difference.

[timepiece]

Not many but they're deprecated/obsolete for a reason, don't you think?

[mathgeek]

Perhaps not many in the design community or front end devs, but I'd wager there are plenty of developers who love <br> because it's what they've always used to do simple layouts so they can get back to the back end.

[SiVal]

br is neither deprecated nor obsolete

[err4nt]

HECK YEE! I even put classes in my <br> tags so I can get at them and decide when and how they display!

[err4nt]

HECK YES! I even put classes in my <br> tags so I can get at them and decide when and how they display!