intertwingly

From the known issues:

XML Parsing Errors (affects XHTML and SVG)

No notifications are currently displayed for XML parsing errors encountered while parsing XHTML or SVG. Note that even without notifications, parsing correctly stops and only content occurring before the error is rendered on the page.

Huh, OpenID not working?
(I test again)

Hello,
In the current IE9 preview, the full content seems to be shown, even after XML parsing errors (so this does not match the behaviour from the known issues). This can be shown by adding more content after the error.
BTW, I think Opera’s behaviour should be copied by other browsers.
Alexandre

Hello Sam,
FYI, for my first comment (using Opera 10.50), I clicked once on “preview”, and then on the first “submit” button on the left (there was two apparently identical “submit” buttons next to each other). Doing that did not take into account my OpenID. Starting a new blank comment without preview used my OpenID properly.
Alexandre

Sorry, my mistake, IE9 does stop the XHTML rendering after an XML error.
My first test was to add a third item to the list, but this was interpreted as a child to the second (unclosed) item and therefore displayed properly. Content after the end of the list is indeed not displayed.
Best regards,
Alexandre

Just to point out what (should be) the obvious... :)

As a programmer, the informative display in Opera is really very nice. As a programmer, you want the browser to loudly reject badly formed XML.

Unless you are a programmer, all but the IE display are completely useless. The web is not primarily for programmers. In fact, programmers are an insignificant percentage. To the bulk of the world an XML mis-parse shouts a bunch of completely useless gibberish. This makes no sense.

This could be an (obscure) Monty Python script. Looking at this, what ran though my head...

“Your request was handled at our state-of-the-art service, where thousands machines running the latest, most advanced software available pulled your information from one of the world’s largest databases to assemble your response. Dozens of incredibly faster routers then bounced your response across the Internet at blazing speed. Once at your desktop an amazing electronic brain, capable executing billions of instructions per second, considered how best to present the response.”

Brain: “Ah. I see your response is missing a wizamabidjet. Sorry! You cannot see it!”

User: “What?!?”

“The response is not proper! You cannot see it!”

User: “But all the information I asked for is there! Can’t I see a little of it?”

“Nope! It wouldn’t be proper!”

Clearly I am not sufficiently British to make this funny ... but still - what makes sense to a programmer can be completely absurd to almost the entire Internet audience.

Preston: Sure. What I meant was in fact in the same direction as what you say. By proposing to parse again as HTML, Opera is the only one that offers to show the “response”, even though it is not “proper”. Opera has thus a behaviour that is IMHO the most useful for both programmers and non-programmers. I would believe though that the error page should be made even more user-friendly for non-programmers.

shelleypowers: Non-draconian XHTML error handlng [link] from @samruby...

theharmonyguy: RT @shelleypowers Non-draconian XHTML error handlng [link] from @samruby...