Chapter 4

Chapter 4 is out! It covers HTML parsing and error handling, and starts Part 2 of the book. I think of this Part, which covers layout, styling, and UI, as making a browser for the late 1990s.

This version of Chapter 4 is the third total rewrite. Turns out, an HTML parser must balance being simple to explain with being accurate enough to avoid parsing mishaps in the rest of the book. Web pages do use the odd corners of the spec, but there are just too many such corners to implement all of them. So the exact content of this chapter is the result of a lot of trial and error, and a lot of feedback from readers and students.

Up next is a big-picture chapter from Chris about why we’re writing this book. Being on this mailing list, you might not need that sales pitch, but it makes our vision for the book explicit.

Do send the book along to anyone you know who might be interested; you can also point them to the Twitter account or the blog. And thanks as always for reading!