Re: Acme::Comment -- Module Review

[Abigail-II]

Unfortunally, Acme::Comment contains bugs. I tried HTML comments as well, and using perfectly valid HTML comment syntax I wrote:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Acme::Comment  type => 'HTML';
use Regexp::Common;

$_ = `cat $0`;

print "Found HTML regex:\n$_\n" for /($RE{comment}{HTML})/g;

<!--
  --
  -->
      die "It's all attributed to human error, Dave\n";
<!--
  --
  -->

print "Ok\n";

__END__
Found HTML regex:
<!--
  --
  -->
      die "It's all attributed to human error, Dave\n";
<!--
  -- 
  -->
It's all attributed to human error, Dave

Abigail

[tye]

Hasn't that silly version of the comment definition died yet? (: Everyone not obsessed with reading official standards knows that HTML comments simply start with <!-- and simply end with -->. I'm surprised you didn't demonstrate whitespace between the -- and the >.

In my experience, the facts of the HTML standard on this point usually lose to the much simpler common misconception of what an HTML comment is. And I'd be quite surprised to find a web page that used a comment that included --> in the middle.

If I found the real definition of the HTML comment technically preferrable (or if I didn't feel that the tide had already turned on this), I'd probably be fighting for standards conformance. As things stand, I tend to prefer de facto standards conformance on this point (though with a small spark of guilt).

Note that PerlMonks gets this and one other small point of HTML intentionally wrong to better deal with HTML produced by the wide variety of users typing it in "by hand".

[Abigail-II]

Isn't it odd that when Microsoft decides to ignore standards and make up their own, many people, especially those that participate in the Open Source movement balk loudly, but when it comes to HTML, people blindly follow Netscape and Microsoft into the darkness, cheering all the way?

Either you endorse open standards, or you don't. There's no middle way.

Abigail

P.S. One reason people don't use --> in their comments is that they have to cater for buggy browsers.