Gus Richter wrote:
The question as Tony read it, was as to how is it determined (by the web
developer, the browser developer, by anyone) what the element's default
type is (block type, or an inline type) if it isn't through the HTML
Specification
Experimentally. You do what existing UAs do and what existing content expects
(which are generally the same thing). Anything else breaks the web.
This is the usual state of things when there is no specification covering an
area.
As for your definitions of necessarily and necessity (from the URLS you cite):
necessarily:
of necessity : UNAVOIDABLY
So "not necessarily" means "not of necessity" or "avoidably".
Hence "There is not necessarily a spec that covers this" means "It is possible
that there is no spec that covers this."
Now what does it mean that a spec is "necessary"? Strictly speaking, an HTML
spec is "necessary" for browser development if browsers cannot implement HTML
without such a spec. This is false, since they can just implement it by reverse
engineering each other, which is exactly how they do it in practice.
Now often people use the word "necessary" loosely to mean "needed" or "desired".
So then "an HTML spec is necessary to ensure greater interoperability between
browsers" just means "if we had one, we'd probably have better interoperability".
In any case, this is all way offtopic, so setting followups.
-Boris
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