in reply to Re^2: Can not link to "id" in shortcuts
in thread Can not link to "id" in shortcuts
You've linked to the HTML 5 spec, which says that using the name attribute is a fallback when there is no such id in the document. PerlMonks is definitely not HTML 5 compliant, if you look at the source you'll see <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> (and even so it fails validation badly), so have a look at the HTML 4.01 spec. Plus, the Markup in the Monastery isn't even "real" HTML (<readmore>, <spoiler>, etc.). <a name="..."></a> has been the standard way to create an anchor as far back as HTML 2.0 HTML 1.0, so don't expect browsers to remove support for it anytime soon.
Sorry for the impromptu lesson on HTML ;-P
Update: I didn't see shmem's post before I posted.
Update 2: <a name="..."> is additionally discussed in the HTML 5 spec in the section "Obsolete but conforming features".