> These paragraphs made quite clear that the author didn't know a > thing about TeX constraints (and is erroneous about space handling > in HTML and XML as well). Obviously somebody who is new to > technical details of existing markup languages. > > So the probability to find something worthwile in the rest of the > text was not high enough to spend the time reading further. Could you please explain to me, where I'm wrong with HTML and XML? I wrote: ,-----[ syntax.pdf ]----- | In languages like HTML, XML, and most programming languages spaces | are treated as following: Line breaks are considered as spaces, | two or more spaces are considered as a single space. `----- The HTML specification ,-----[ http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html ]----- | only the following characters are defined as white space | characters: | - ASCII space ( ) | - ASCII tab (	) | - ASCII form feed () | - Zero-width space (​) | Line breaks are also white space characters. : ... | For all HTML elements except PRE, sequences of white space | separate "words" (we use the term "word" here to mean "sequences | of non-white space characters"). When formatting text, user agents | should identify these words and lay them out according to the | conventions of the particular written language (script) and target | medium. : ... | For example, in Latin scripts, inter-word space is typically | rendered as an ASCII space ( ), `----- The XML specification ,-----[ http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml ]----- | S (white space) consists of one or more space (#x20) characters, | carriage returns, line feeds, or tabs. | | White Space | [3] S ::= (#x20 | #x9 | #xD | #xA)+ `----- Martin