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Obfuscated HTML Contest?

Posted by Cliff on from the they-do-it-for-other-languages dept.

ptaff asks: "We all know the nightmare of typical HTML developer: you get different results on different browsers/platforms (and we're talking HTML only, no CSS/scripts). To make matters worse, MSIE has this ability to render completely invalid HTML code (missing tags, invalid nesting, you get the point). Mozilla and its many cousins are trying hard to keep up with the inconsistencies of today's 'web-optimized-for-MSIE', but where is the limit? As an exercise, can you build the most malformed HTML document that can be rendered in MSIE but will choke on others browsers?"

4 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. You are in a maze of specialized tags, by Myself · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why not make it render something different but valid in as many different browsers as possible?

    My sympathy goes out to the judges of this contest.

  2. not writing obfuscated - find it by HTD · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think it's better to find pages that use such code. example - the www.europcar.com .de .fr pages the use a javascript menu that does ONLY work in MSIE on windows. No MacIE, Mozilla(choose your platform), Opera 7 or other alternative browsers. You simply cannot see the menu or cannot use it - therefore you cannot navigate. There are more pages out there, writing this code on purpose is pointless, because it has already been written ;) Find those pages and complain, make a publicly available list of invalid non-working HTML pages. Write the webmasters about your problems. And of course show workarounds so that those "programmers" can see and change their mistakes.

    A good reason for coding obfuscated (be it valid or invalid) HTML would be to create a repository of "real world" code for Browser developers out there to check if it works with their product. Then of course a "desired output" image should be attached to the code.

    Creating a blacklist of corporate pages using invalid html is my favourite idea, but the mentioned repository would help a lot coders out there...
  3. Doing my part by mnmn · · Score: 2, Interesting


    I'm setting up a value web-hosting system in the next 6 months using Fractional T1.. and one of the plans is to run all submitted HTML code through the validator script, and add a warning message at the bottom of the page if it has errors. This will be mentioned in the SLA.

    Just doing my part to put the standards back into the web.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
  4. This is backwards... by Da+VinMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Obfuscated HTML?! Anyone can do that! Sorry, but most HTML out there is fairly crappy.

    Wouldn't an un-obfuscated HTML contest where the code is judged by how well it plays and demonstrates advanced features on multiple browsers be more challenging?

    Some reusable bits may actually come about as the result of this sort of contest.

    --
    Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!