[whatwg] Empty elements

[Tim Altman]

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 23:48:57 +0100, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:

> On Wed, 15 Feb 2006, Tim Altman wrote:
>>
>> May OBJECT and CANVAS be treated as empty elements, i.e. <canvas /> and
>> <object /> if there is no fallback content?
>
> I don't understand your question.

Let me rephrase: Is it valid for the object and canvas elements use the  
empty element syntax?

> If you mean "Can the string '<object/>' be treated as an empty element
> tag", the answer is no.

You seem to have answered my question here.  Why not?

[...]

>> Is fallback content required on OBJECT and CANVAS?
>
> Just like with <img alt="">, the lack of fallback content on either of
> these would merely indicate that they were semantically neutral and not
> conveying any extra information. For example:
>
>    <h1>The foobar</h1>
>    <p>The foobar is a green circle.</p>
>    <p><object data="greencircle.png"></object></p>
>
> There is no fallback here because it would be redundant -- the image
> paragraph is merely repeating the previous paragraph for emphasis in
> visual media.

Right.

-- 
Tim Altman